Public servant an example for all

Help with nurses’ problem

AT dinner tables, in buses and taxis, and wherever families and friends gather, one hears a lot of stories about public servants who are inept, sluggish, pathetic, unresponsive, lethargic and corrupt.

Hence, if some people can afford private services, such as hospitals, schools and other services, they will never go to public institutions, but rather to private institutions.

Conspicuous manifestation thereof is the number of parents sending their children to private institutions, hospitals, school, crèches, etc.

But, I can also say confidently that there are some good or excellent people in the public service, despite pervasive public opinion.

In the past seven months, I have had a very complex and complicated predicament with the Eastern Cape department of health, starting in May.

This predicament was lifethreatening, soul- and careerdestroying.

After trying to solve this problem with local, regional and provincial officials of the department, nothing was achieved.

Corresponding with these officials, in a written and a verbal form (through their secretaries, of course), nothing happened.

This seems to be a normal standard in the public service.

Officials there do not return calls and do not even acknowledge correspondence of different forms, such as e-mails.

Every time one phones them, they are either not there, in a meeting, off sick or simply on protracted leave without even looking at your problem – very unprofessional.

This predicament ensued excruciatingly for about four months unabatedly until I resorted to writing to Eastern Cape premier Phumulo Masualle.

In his office, the chief of staff is the honourable Nandi Sikutshwa.

I call her honourable with a sense of veneration because of her impeccable and caring character.

She is the opposite to the ordinary public servant, whose trait was cited above.

I do not think even a day passed by after I wrote to her and she promptly replied in a very cordial, professional and sympathetic manner.

With her professionalism, I could immediately sense that something positive was going to happen and already I started to have a sense of relief.

This predicament not only affected me, but directly approximately 17 people and indirectly approximately 85.

Sikutshwa, from the start, acted in a wonderful way that if all public servants could behave and respond in the manner she does, we would see less or nil violent toyi-toyiing, violent protests and destruction, sometimes deaths, that we experience almost every day in South Africa, against alleged pathetic service delivery.

I do not have sufficient words to describe how this woman acted to solve an impasse of seven months in a very short space of time.

Not only did she listen, but she empathised with us.

I have never personally seen her, but I could sense she was not there to get her pay at the end of the month, but she has innate and ingrained Batho Pele and ubuntu values that escape most public servants.

This is what all public servants must have, to serve the people of our country.

It is my belief that many leaders who are now deemed to be failures are not failures, per se, but sometimes they are failed by the people they employ and trust in their offices.

They supply them with all equipment to run their offices, but sometimes this equipment is not used for the benefit of the citizens.

Hence there is so much pandemonium and commotion in some public institutions.

Sikutshwa worked so hard and selflessly for my daughter and 16 other nurses, who were left stranded for seven months waiting for letters of employment from the department of health, to be reinstated. Again I say well done. A tree is known by its fruits.

Lawana David Vaaltein, KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage