Foreign nurses 'trickle in' - eight times slower than locals leaving.

Only 78 foreign-qualified nurses were registered to practise in South Africa last year, mainly because of poor compliance with application requirements and an inability by war-torn/ dysfunctional African governments to verify professional qualifications. These were among the reasons provided by Linda Hlaisi, manager of the South African Nursing Council's (SANC) Foreign Workforce section, for the congealing trickle of badly needed foreign-qualified nurses into this country. She was responding principally to complaints by frustrated nurse applicants holding official foreign refugee status. South Africa does not recruit health care workers from a United Nations list of 'developing countries' but makes an exception for legal refugees from war-torn countries, provided they meet professional requirements. The numbers of foreign-qualified nurses registered to practise in this country by the SANC has dropped steadily from 137 in 2004 to 104 in 2005 to just 78 last year. The implications that this slowing trickle of SANC-endorsed foreign-qualified nurses has for health care delivery, especially in severely understaffed rural facilities, are especially serious given the failure of local nursing colleges to meet existing needs. By contrast, the annual exodus of South African trained nurses seems to be, even on the most conservative estimate, at least 8 times that of the foreign-qualified 'influx'. The nursing council's own database shows that between January and April last year (just 4 months) there were 639 applications by locally trained nurses to have their training record and certification sent to a foreign country. The database is currently being updated and the annual potential exodus will probably triple once all the 2006 figures are in. While this does not mean that all these nurses will leave the country, it is an indicator of intention and the only known 'outflow' measurement tool available. As of 4 January this year (2007), there were 196 914 nurses of all professional categories registered with the SANC. Of these, 101 295 are registered nurses, 39 305 are enrolled nurses and 56 314 are auxiliaries. From interviews with the Nursing Council's Information Technology and Foreign Workforce departments, Izindaba estimates that the registration of foreign-qualified nurses represents less than a quarter of all the foreigners who apply annually. Hlaisi said that since she started her job in January 2005 she had recorded 388 foreign-qualified nurses who were either successfully registered or 'in process'. She was unable to state the percentage of applicants who had met all the local requirements and been …