Reasons why nurses' names were removed from the South African nursing council's registers or rolls

Abstract

South Africa experiences a shortage of nurses. The removal of names from the South African Nursing Council's (SANC's) register implies that these persons cannot practise as nurses in South Africa in terms of the Nursing Act (no 33 of 2005). The objectives of the study were to find out why nurses' names were removed from the SANC's registers/rolls during 2008, and under what conditions they would be willing to re-enter the nursing profession. A quantitative descriptive research design was adopted. From November 2008 until January 2009 postal questionnaires were completed by 51 nurses whose names had been removed from the SANC's registers/rolls, comprising the sample for this study. The major reasons why nurses' names had been removed from these registers/rolls included that they had died, retired, no longer worked as nurses or did not pay their annual SANC registration fees. Some respondents continued paying their annual SANC fees for many years without working as nurses. Recruitment efforts directed at nurses whose names had been removed from the SANC registers/rolls might be unsuccessful, as 49.0% of these respondents were older than 60, and might not consider re-entering the nursing profession. However, part-time positions in selected healthcare services, requiring no shifts, might enable some of these non-practising nurses to re-enter the profession.