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WEDNESDAY 2022 AUGUST 2014
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Class boycott over However, many of students’ demands are still not met } Teboho Setena and Motlalepule Mokgosi STUDENT NURSES at the Free State School of Nursing’s Northern Campus at the Bongani Regional Hospital are still in a predicament despite having ended their class boycott. The beleaguered Free State Department of Health has not met all the demands raised by the students enrolled for the nurses training programme at the institution. Despite the cash-strapped department’s failure to meet its obligations, the majority of the students returned to class on Monday after boycotting classes for weeks. The students’ protest followed failure by the troubleridden department’s management to meet obligations to provide the students with items necessary for their training programmes. The student leaders have been in constant consultation from last week Monday to temporarily suspend the two-week protest. They had to deal with internal conflicts to continue their action as the other sector would not budge based on the department’s management failing to respond to their demands. The protest saw about 70 students boycotting classes.
NURSING STUDENTS at the Free State School of Nursing return to class after boy cotting classes for weeks. Photo: Teboho Setena
Gift Mnyamane, chairperson of the Students Representative Council (SRC), says of their critical demands the department has only succeeded in responding to two items – the vaccination of students and arranging that students in the community nursing service professional programme start with their experiential programme at the Bongani Hospital to complete their nursing programme. “Our other critical de-
mands include unpaid monthly grants, undelivered study material and the supply of uniforms for students, which have not been met. “The response from the department’s management is that we are not going to receive uniforms, citing financial difficulties as the reason. This is disappointing,” says Mnynamane. He says they have considered other avenues to pressurise the department
to deliver and meet their other demands that include an unpaid monthly grant of R2 000 and study material. “We are going to take up the matters with the union seeing that the authorities from the provincial office are not prepared to address our demands,” says Mnyamane. Frustrated students told Express Goldfields & NFS that they were owed grants for seven months. Disgruntled students cried bitterly and female students could not
hide their frustration to go months without what is critical for their personal hygiene. “We come from different backgrounds, we can’t suffer like this. It’s painful to see people using newspapers as sanitary towels. It is torture, they have wasted our time. “It seems they have taken us for granted. They also expect us to focus and report for duty under such extreme conditions,” said a female student.