It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has put a massive strain on our country’s healthcare system. But perhaps less known than it should be is that nurses took the hardest hit.
In appreciation of our local nurses’ contribution to the country, the fourth annual Night Run to Honour Nurses is back, and will be coming to Cape Town this weekend.
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The initiative called The Exceptional Nurse Campaign aims to create awareness and raise the alarm on the country’s critical shortage of professional and specialist nurses through this event.
The seven-kilometre Night Run will be hosted at the Green Point Promenade in Cape Town tomorrow evening, 3 September 2022.
The seven-kilometre route that participants will be running represents the 12-hour shifts that our nurses work. All monies raised will go towards bursaries for student nurses.
Visit their website or Facebook page for details on how to participate in the initiative.
The details:
- Date: Saturday, 3 September 2022
- Time: 5.00 pm to 7.00 pm
- Location: Green point Promenade, starting at the Mouille Point lighthouse
- Tickets: R100 for adults and R50 for children under 12
“Florence Nightingale was the ‘Lady of the Lamp’ so we thought it would be really fun if nurses could run with headlamps,” says Sister Teresa Basson who started The Exceptional Nurse Campaign in 2015 after witnessing the desperate situation in our public hospitals and community clinics.
“Fifty percent of the nurses in our country are nearing retirement age. We are losing 9 000 nurses annually due to retirement and death, but currently only have capacity to train 3 000 nurses each year. The Night Run events create a healthy public platform to urge government to address the current healthcare crisis and train more nurses.”
About 51 million people are dependent upon the Department of Health for healthcare services which are provided through 350 public hospitals and approximately over 3000 community clinics.
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Picture: The Exceptional Nurse Campaign
