When nursing agencies recruiting nurses for overseas jobs were offering one or two-year renewable contracts, it was not only understandable but was also acceptable.

They were going to be visitors to those countries and did not need permanent jobs. This in no way introduced a new trend in the employment of health professionals.

Continuity and sustained development is fundamental in the maintenance of high-quality standards of healthcare. I feel sorry for the previously employed nurses in the Eastern Cape who were offered contracts that will end on March 31 next year.

They are in no position to plan their lives meaningfully, knowing they will soon be unemployed, even though their communities will still be in dire need of their services. What kind of reasoning is this? Who could ever think that social change could lead to so much chaos?

Who could have ever imagined that a basic human right like healthcare could one day be so undermined that it would be subjected to contracts like those of construction companies? Where is the dignity of health professionals in all of this?

As contract workers, when will they start building or buying homes or cars, and building their pension funds? Will there ever be an end to this frustrating chaos any time in the foreseeable future? Healthcare and education deserve better than this. Please rethink all these unnecessary destructive changes.

Cometh Dube-Makholwa, Midrand