Adequacy and efficiency of nursing staff in a child-welfare-clinic at Umtata General Hospital, South Africa

Background

South Africa has a serious shortage of human and financial resources to provide primary healthcare services especially in the historically under-served areas. It is a tedious task to carry out healthcare delivery for the masses without rationalizing human resources in the form of re-allocation and re-deployment of healthcare personnel. This study aimed to establish the level of adequacy and efficiency of nursing staff in the former Transkei region. The study was carried out in the child and family welfare clinic of the Umtata General Hospital.

Objective

To assess adequacy and efficiency of nursing staff in a child welfare clinic.

Method

This was a retrospective study. The workload of two nurses allocated to the child welfare clinic at Umtata General Hospital South Africa was calculated based on the patient numbers and hours of work per week. Calculations excluded time breaks for tea, lunch and annual leave. This work load was compared to the norms of standard examination time that is 12 minutes per patient obtained from the sub directorate of Natalia Office of the Department of Health. Information regarding number of patients attended to by the nurses and their disease conditions was obtained from retrospective review of hospital records.

Results

While each nurse was on duty for 8 hours per day each had only 6 reproductive hours. The two nurses examined only 310 patients giving staff utilization of 2.46% (i.e. 310/12600) and adequacy of staff of 0.0492 or 310/6300.

Conclusion

There is under-utilization of the staff in Umtata General Hospital, South Africa.

Recommendation

To increase utilization of the nurses a process of sharing and merging with a clinic or a ward with similar type of work is recommended.