S Africa to raise nurses' pay by 20 per cent

JOHANNESBURG, July 13 (Reuters) AIDS-hit South Africa, which has seen many health workers leave for better pay overseas, will raise nurses' salaries by around 20 per cent in an effort to keep more at home, the health minister said today.

The announcement followed a pay strike by public servants last month which crippled operations in many public hospitals and schools. That strike ended when public service unions agreed to an increase of 7.5 per cent.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the proposed additional wage increases for nurses were part of a drive to improve working conditions for health professionals.

''Following the lifting of the strike and the signing of the wage agreement by the trade unions, we began the arduous task of rebuilding relationships within the health sector.'' She said the proposals represented increases of more than 21 per cent for professional nurses, 20 per cent for staff nurses and 23 percent for auxiliary nurses at entry level.

The increases would mean that newly qualified professional nurse would start at a salary equivalent to about 14,000 dollars per year, or 2,400 dollars more than before the new wage deal, she said.

''We are fully committed to improving the conditions of service of the health workers in the country,'' she said.

Thousands of doctors, nurses and medical assistants have left the country since 1994, impeding its ability to offer basic healthcare to millions of poor people and cope with one of the world's worst AIDS epidemics.

About 12 per cent of South Africa's 47 million people are believed to be infected with the HIV virus, and about 1,000 die every day of AIDS and related conditions -- a crisis that threatens to overwhelm the country's beleaguered health system.

Tshabalala-Msimang recently announced the government was recruiting some 1,000 doctors from Tunisia and luring others back from Britain and elsewhere as it seeks to put health workers in place to help its AIDS battle, which now includes one of the world's largest public programmes dispensing anti-retroviral drugs.

REUTERS AKJ RK2214