Johannesburg — DESPITE the moratorium on the accreditation of new nursing training colleges heading for its fifth year, the number of nurses being trained in SA was increasing, the South African Nursing Council (SANC) said yesterday.

For the second successive year the Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on the health minister, in this case new minister Aaron Motsoaledi, to set up an inquiry into why it has taken "four years and counting" to develop a college accreditation policy.

"We call on the new minister of health to set up an inquiry into why, in the face of 42000 vacant positions for nurses in the public sector and 18000 (projected for the) .... private sector by 2011, it has taken four years and counting for the SANC to develop this policy. How much longer is it going to take?" DA health spokesman Mike Waters said.

SANC statistics show the number of "students, pupils and pupil nursing auxiliaries" had increased from 29598 in 2007 to 32694 last year.

The number of registered nurses and midwives, enrolled nurses and enrolled nursing auxiliaries had increased from 203948 in 2007 to 212806 last year.

Although the regulations had not yet been finalised for publishing for public comment, there was no hold-up in the drafting process, SANC deputy registrar of professional affairs, Sizeni Mchunu, said.

There was a continuing drafting process between the SANC and the Department of Health on various sets of regulations, one of which dealt with the accreditation of new nursing colleges.

Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande has repeatedly said that the government decision more than 10 years ago to close down public nursing training colleges, along with public teacher training and agricultural colleges was "a mistake" and that the government would be reopening them in some form.

Mchunu said the SANC council college regulations had had to be rejigged when the Nursing Act was promulgated in 2006, and that the Higher Education Amendment Bill, released in the past few months, had also affected the drafting process.

"We do have an end in sight.... We hope that we'll have them approved by the end of the year," she said.

The private sector had trained 6500 nurses last year -- or put another way, had produced 52% of all new nurses, Waters said.