KZN health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo has conveyed his gratitude to MTN SA for their sponsorship of a R1,2 million multi-media centre for the training of nurses Grey’s Hospital, saying that this will result in improved public healthcare service delivery through the production of suitably equipped and skilled nurses.
The donation, at this KZN College of Nursing sub-campus, was handed over to the Department yesterday(22 June 2018), and includes a high-tech computer laboratory with 41 computers, free data, and specialized anatomy and physiology online learning software for the more than 400 nursing students. The laboratory also consists of two interactive whiteboards, two laptops and two printers. Lecturers have also been trained in its use.
According to MTN SA, this is the ninth such donation in the country. And everywhere that it is launched, the initiative leads to a massive academic improvement with nursing students averaging a 90% pass mark in challenging subjects such as physiology and anatomy.
Speaking at Grey’s Hospital yesterday, MEC Dhlomo said the donation comes at the right time, with plans afoot for the KZN College of Nursing to receive accreditation by the Council of Higher Education [CHE] and the South African Nursing Council [SANC] to offer new nursing qualifications.
“The computers donated by MTN will contribute immensely towards the development of competent and efficient nurses who are able to use technology when they are qualified.
“This generous gesture will go a long way in the strengthening modern ways of teaching and learning of our nursing students as it fosters modern and technological teaching methodologies in the education and training of the nurses.
“We are very grateful that we’ve received this support, at a sub-campus that is already exceling. This is also important in terms of our programmes that we have in the country, where we are going electronic in terms of patients records. Therefore, getting our nurses to benefit in their undergraduate training by being exposed to computer labs and also getting some of their programmes into the computer where they can easily do demos, is something that is amazing.”
Angie Maloka, senior manager at MTN SA Foundation, the Corporate Social Responsibility Arm of the cellphone network giant, said: “We are very pleased to be handing over this multimedia centre. With nursing content, you need to have images. We’ve provided the content that is interactive. When they’re speaking about the lungs for example, they’ll be able to see the lungs in a 3-D scan, 3-D image and they’re able to internalize it… [they’ll be able to see] in case someone has TB, how does it affect the lungs if it’s TB of the lungs. That way it becomes easy for them when they’re doing exams… This is the ninth college that we’re sponsoring. In other colleges we’ve seen a significant improvement, especially on the subjects that are difficult, like physiology and anatomy, where the average performance was 40%. At the moment, they’re reporting a 90% pass rate. And that’s comforting for us, to say, we’ve contributed towards the training of nurses who are going to provide quality care at the end of the day, so that the patients they’ll be encountering, when they’re working, they’ll be able to benefit and be looked after by nurses who’ve received quality training. Also, when they’re doing training, they’ll be able to do different research. And when they do their assignments, this technology… together with the connectivity, training and digitized content that we’ve provided, is going to enable them to be better nurses. Now we’re talking Fourth Industrial Revolution. They’re going to be part of that environment, and not be left behind.”
Ms Maloka said that, budgets permitting, the company will consider sponsoring more colleges.