This ethnographic study of nurses at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban, South Africa was designed to seek insights into the lives of women as nurses during the socio-political transition of the 1990's. It suggests that this period of dramatic political change in the country created spaces for redressing uneven social relations and chronic disparities faced by nurses in their personal and professional lives, particularly those constructed through the social engineering of apartheid policies. The study describes the particular evolution of nursing in South Africa, the process undertaken to unify the professional nursing associations formed through the 1980's and the national labour unrest that rippled through the health care system between 1994 and 1996. It considers the diverse locations of nurses as the backbone of the healthcare system, primarily in their capacities as professionals, managers, care-providers, team-players and colleagues and describes practices that operate to constrain nurses as women and health care practitioners. Feminist, post-structural perspectives framed the theoretical approach taken in this qualitative study. These were guided by Foucauldian theories of knowledge, power and discourse, and feminist contributions regarding resistance and agency. Over the course of four years in the field, methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews were employed to develop insights into the subject locations of nurses in their private and public lives. Twenty-six nurses of the professional and subprofessional categories contributed to the main narratives. In addition, a series of interviews were undertaken with key informants from the medical, paramedical, nursing and administrative services. The study illustrates the practices of patriarchal, institutional and organisational relations of power that intersected and dominated the realities of the nurses in all spheres of their day-to-day lives. Within the post-colonial moment in South Africa, these were conceptualized as subaltern institutional relations. The study found that as a consequence of their subjugation within the subaltern institutional relations, the realities of nurses were diverse, divergent, and fragmented. It argues that these relations imbued a lack of professional and personal coherence that impaired the capacity of nurses to contest the chronic professional and work place disparities. Often multiple and compounding in their manifestation, these relations and practices reinforced the isolation of nurses, compounding their incapacity to meaningful challenge professional and personal obstacles during the socio-political transition of the 1990's. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

The aim of the study was to explore the practice of caring in human resource management of nurses. Both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used to ensure that the richness and the complexities of caring is reflected in the study. A qualitative analysis of the interviews vvth nurse managers and nurses indicated that they saw caring as an important part of their task. They saw caring in human resource management of nurses mainly as dealing with the interpersonal aspects- personal problem-solving-, development and growth-, welfare needs-, and HIV/AIDS issues related to nurses. A quantitative survey of nurses from different levels was done to explore the presence and enactment of caring in the formulating strategies, structuring the work, workforce planning, staffing process and in the utilising and maintaining of nurses. It was found, according to respondents that caring was not present to satisfactory levels in the human resource management process of nurses, although caring concepts, as well as Christian principles, were present and clearly described in the mission, philosophies and goals and objectives of the hospitals. The fact that nurse managers are not solely responsible for the experiences of nurses and the way nurses expressed themselves on the caring issues in human resource management in the study should be emphasised. Organisational factors such as salaries and benefits of nurses, shortage of nurses at national and international levels, organisational structures and other financial ccnstrains in hospitals, contribute to the experiences of nurses in this study. Health service administrators, nurse managers and nurses should all take the responsibility to find means to improve and instil caring in hospitals. Therefore the decision to train nurse managers and to upgrade the management knowledge and the implementation of caring concepts in nursing management with relevant care and support to HIV/AIDS nurses, is of the utmost importance to equip nurse managers to survive in these demanding circumstances in the hospitals. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Background: The health care systems across are characterised by the gross shortage of nurses. A number of initiatives have been reported which seek to address this challenge. Literature shows that males remain an inadequately tapped source, They remain a minority in nursing compared to their female counterparts. Literature also shows that gender-based barriers for male nurses exist. The purpose of this study was to explore gender-related constructs that influence the recruitment and retention of men in nursing as experienced by male nurses in three selected hospitals in the eThekwini district. Research Methodology: A qualitative, explorative and descriptive design was used in this study to illuminate the views of male nurses regarding their recruitment and retention in nursing .. Purposive sampling was used to select male nurses from three hospitals for interviews and a total of 37 participants participated in this study. The participants were drawn from private and public hospitals. Data was collected through individual and focus group interviews and was analyzed qualitatively. Research Findings: Four major themes emerged from data. These included the journey to nursing, experiences of males in the nursing profession, retention of male nurses and strategies to recruit and retain males in nursing. Findings from the groups and categories of males in nursing in different hospitals showed similarities which reflected that the barriers faced by men in the nursing profession were still pervasive, consistent and had undergone few changes over time. Recommendations: Recommendations were categorised into community, general education, nursing education, nursing practice and nursing research. / Thesis (M.N.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.N.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

INTRODUCTION: Providing sufficient quality nurses in resource strapped countries is a human resource management challenge which nurse managers’ experience on a daily basis. THE PURPOSE of this study was to analyse and to determine the issues which affect the the human resources management of nurse managers in selected hospitals in the eThekwini District of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and to formulate draft guidelines to assist nurse managers with human resource management. METHODOLOGY: A constructionist, reflexive ethnographic approach was used. The ethnographer spent two years in the field collecting data from informants, who were nurse managers, in four (4) selected district hospitals. Data was collected using unstructured informant interviews, non-participant observation and confirmatory document analysis. Data analysis led to eliciting codes from the data, searching for semantic relationships, performing componential analyses and discovering the themes for discussion within the final ethnographic report. A nominal group process was used to develop the draft guidelines. FINDINGS: The findings showed that the human resources management around sick nurses is a complex task. The themes of nurse managers’ experiences were a “burden” of maintaining confidentiality, as well as an emotional burden. Administratively, they experience the burden of absenteeism and the burden of policy compliance. The final theme is the burden of the deaths of HIV and Tuberculosis affected/infected nurses. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Organizations should create a non-judgmental work environment where non- disclosure by employees is respected in order to promote disclosure. They should have an awareness of the emotional effect on nurse managers and provide them with support. Emphasis needs to be placed on an HIV and AIDS policy and programme, incapacity leave workplace strategies and return to work policies. It is also recommended that contingency plans be provided when the death or prolonged absence of an employee impacts the staffing of the organization; consideration to be given to piloting and refining the draft guidelines; the management of employees on prolonged sick leave be included in the Nursing Administration Curricula taught to future nurse managers; and further research be conducted to assess employee reluctance to report needle stick injuries (sharps injuries) as well as the related phenomenon of stigmatization. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2014.

This study involved an investigation of the perceptions that social workers and occupational health nurses have, of clinical and counselling psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and priests. The present study includes a sample of social workers and occupational health nurses in the Pietermaritzburg region. Subjects were required to i) rate their confidence in the ability of each of these professionals to treat 5 clinical cases, ii) rate their confidence in each of the professionals to help them with their own problems iii) rate each of the 5 cases in terms of the severity of each case, iv) rate each of these practitioners on 11 personal qualities developed by Webb and Speer (1986), and v) choose from a list of 10 professions the one they would like their off-spring to persue. Repeated measures anovas, Tukey's HSD test, and descriptive statistics, were used to analyse the data. The results indicated that the sample i) was moderately confident in the abilities of psychologists to treat 5 cases ii) was moderately confident in the abilities of psychologists to treat their own problems, iii) rated case 3 as being most severe and psychiatrists as being more competent to treat this 'severe' case, iv) rated psychologists quite favourably in terms of personal qualities, and chose engineers and accountants above psychologists. Further analysis revealed that in certain instances, the sample appeared to have a preference for counselling psychologists over clinical psychologists, and rated mental health professionals more favourably than non-mental health professionals. The results also indicated that the sample appeared to lack clarity about the roles, functions and skills of psychologists. Implications for the job security of psychologists, and the need for educational and public relations efforts are discussed. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

Title: Exploring the lived experiences of nurses caring for the terminally ill patients with AIDS in selected wards in a level one district hospital. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of nurses caring for dying patients with AIDS in the context of palliative care. Methodology: The study explored the meaning of caring and terminal illness and the lived experiences of nurses in the context of AIDS in palliative care. A constructivist paradigm underpinned this study. A qualitative research approach was used and Giorgi’s five steps of analysis were aligned to the Husserlian phenomenology method to make sense of the data. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with ten of the operational nurses who were caring for patients suffering from AIDS in the palliative care wards of a level one state-aided district hospital. These included professional nurses, enrolled nurses and enrolled nursing assistants. The interviews were audio-taped. Findings: The findings of the study were presented and discussed according to the two categories that emerged during the data analysis, namely, conceptualization of the core concepts of caring and terminal illness and the experiences of caring in the context of palliative care. Each of these categories had themes and sub-themes that were presented and discussed. The conceptualization of the core terms influenced the nurses’ actions, behaviors and opinions as they described their experiences of taking care of terminally ill patients who suffered from AIDS. The nurses’ lived experiences were conceptualized into three main themes: the social networking that enabled the nurses to collaborate with colleagues in the interdisciplinary teams and share knowledge, skills and support within the palliative care team to optimize patient outcomes; factors hindering the nurses abilities to provide quality care to their patients and the internal and external mechanisms that enabled the nurses to provide care within palliative care contexts despite the encountered challenges. Conclusion: Nurses are exposed to increasing work-load in the context of HIV/AIDS, particularly in the care of terminally ill patients suffering from AIDS as they deal with complex emotional aspects of the diseases. Routine exposure to suffering and death accustom the nurses to dealing with death, resulting in situations where they display lack of care and respect for the terminal patients. Therefore, the antecedents that alter the nurses’ level of caring augmented by the emotionally taxing contexts are an agenda that needs to be addressed in order to achieve emotional work through improved nurse-patient relationships. / Thesis (M.N.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.