Tenth Human Rights and Nursing Awards announced

Monday 12 September 2011

The Human Rights and Nursing Awards are presented to nurses in recognition of an outstanding commitment to human rights and nursing’s humanistic philosophy.

Two awards were presented by Vice-Chancellor Christopher Snowden. One award went to Masitsela Mhlanga and Thabsile Dlamini (from Swaziland) while the other went to Ana Luisa Aranha e Silva (from Brazil).

The Awards are run by the ICNE, which is part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. They were first presented in 2001. ‘The awards recognise the achievements of exemplary nurses who contribute to the flourishing of vulnerable patients and marginalised groups. Nurses are often the unsung heroes of healthcare and are too rarely recognised as they go quietly about their work, often in very challenging circumstances. The awards represent a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the contribution of nursing in a global context and of a few outstanding individuals’, said Dr Ann Gallagher, Director of ICNE and Editor of the journal, Nursing Ethics.

Award recipients:

Masitela Mhlanga and Thabsile Dlamini have worked together for many years in the Swaziland Nurses Association (SNA).

Swaziland has the world’s largest proportion of people suffering from HIV/AIDS. It also has an extremely low ratio of nurses to population (35 nurses per 100,000 of population).

As President of the SNA, Masitela Mhlanga led the country’s first-ever nurses’ strike in 1999. The strike improved the status of the SNA and allowed nurses to sit in collective bargaining chambers and negotiate conditions of service, including salaries. Masitela’s ongoing political work has helped to secure a near fifty per cent rise in nurses’ salaries and other benefits for all civil servants.

Masitela has also established a Wellness Centre for health care workers affected by HIV/AIDS. The Centre is funded by a unique combination of organisations (including the International Council of Nurses and the Danish Nurses Association). It has since been replicated in a number of southern African countries.
 
As the General Secretary of the SNA, Thabsile Dlamini spearheaded the revision and drafting of the Association’s new constitution. In 1992, the new draft  established the SNA as an independent, democratic and professional organisation with bargaining and lobbying powers. Thabsile pioneered the composition of the patient rights charter and she led negotiations to ensure that nurses get protective clothing in certain situations.

Thabsile also inspired the creation of the Girl Child Education Trust. The GCEF supports the primary and secondary schooling of girls under the age of 18 in developing countries whose nurse parent or parents have died. According to the latest data (February 2011), the trust supported 226 girls in Zambia, Kenya, Swaziland and Uganda.

Ana Luisa Aranha e Silva is an expert in psychosocial rehabilitation from the School of Nursing at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Ana Luisa’s work in the field of mental health is inspired by Brazil’s commitment to ‘Solidarity Economics’, a form of economic organisation and collective self-management that negates the impact of social exclusion.

In 2006, Ana Luisa started ‘Bar BIBITandTã’, a business that now runs a restaurant and serves snacks and meals at events around the University and other cultural, scientific and social functions. Mental health service users, staff and students are invited to work in the Bar on a basis of equality. All the activities of the Bar are decided collectively and evaluated from the standpoint of economic feasibility. All workers (except staff employed by USP) receive the same salary, considering ‘value-hours’ rather than income.

The Bar is an innovative collective project that combines theory and practice, ethics, mental health and the solidarity economy. It gives students from the School of Nursing an excellent platform for research and it provides mental health service users with employment and self-management.

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