Nurses, who form the largest part of the healthcare workforce globally, play a crucial role in providing healthcare services, from basic nursing care to advanced and specialised care to critically ill patients, managing chronic conditions, and educating patients, families and communities about healthcare issues.
Well-trained nursing professionals are critical, and when capping on numbers of students either by the professional body or by the limited placement opportunities in the clinical settings, ensuring adequate training of nurses becomes another common challenge. This can lead to a lack of confidence due to inadequate knowledge and poor competency levels to deliver quality care.
In some instances, there may be a lack of political will to invest in healthcare and address the underlying issues contributing to the nursing crisis, perhaps because these challenges aren't prioritised given that we are struggling to find solutions to other societal problems such as poverty, unemployment, load shedding, failing infrastructure, corruption, joblessness, and crime.
Finally, addressing the nursing crisis is a matter of social justice. Nurses often work in challenging environments, and the lack of investment in their profession can lead to poor working conditions and low salaries. This often results in vulnerable communities and low-income individuals, especially those in rural areas, who cannot afford alternative healthcare options being deprived of the quality healthcare they so desperately need. Quality accessible healthcare is a basic human right.