Health SA Gesondheid promotes communication, collaboration and teamwork between professions and disciplines within the health sciences to address problems that cross and affect disciplinary boundaries.

Background: During the training of student nurses, clinical placement is a compulsory requirement, as it exposes them to learning opportunities for the acquisition of clinical skills. This prepares them to become safe and competent professional nurses. However, the increased intake of student nurses in the Gauteng nursing colleges led to overcrowding in a public academic hospital, thus negatively influencing their learning experiences and availability of clinical learning opportunities.Aim: The purpose was to explore and describe the student nurses’ experiences regarding their clinical learning opportunities to make recommendations to enhance their clinical learning opportunities in order to address the optimisation of their learning experiences.Methodology: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was used. A purposive sampling method was used to select second-year student nurses registered in the Regulation (R425) programme for qualifying as a nurse (general, psychiatry and community) and midwife, as they would have acquired at least 1 year of clinical experience. Four focus groups, which comprised six to eight participants, were constituted, and research was conducted until data were saturated. Field notes were simultaneously taken to enrich the data collected. Thematic coding of qualitative data was used. Principles of trustworthiness and ethical principles were adhered to.Results: The study revealed four themes. Three were negative experiences that included overcrowding, negative emotional experiences of student nurses and challenges of professional nurses. A theme concerning positive experience entailed knowledge-sharing amongst various health care disciplines.Conclusion: It was evident that student nurses had more negative emotional experiences than positive experiences. Therefore, the need to enhance their clinical learning opportunities in order to address the optimisation of learning experiences is eminent.

Critical thinking frequently involves the ability to interpret information and make informed decisions based on such information, which usually includes foundational knowledge. There is a need in nursing practice for graduates with critical thinking skills to enable them to make informed clinical decisions that will benefit patients. The facilitation of critical thinking has been elusive to many nurse educators. Critical thinking (CT) is not taught in a vacuum, but integration into content has been found to be beneficial in its facilitation. Consideration of foundational knowledge as a basis for facilitation of CT during teaching and learning remains a challenge in nursing education. This paper explored and described the perception of nurse educators on how foundational knowledge can be used as a basis to facilitate CT during teaching and learning. A qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive design that is contextual in nature was employed. A sample of thirteen (n = 13) nurse educators was purposively selected, and data were collected through unstructured individual interviews. The collected data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Tesch’s method of qualitative data analysis. The following themes emerged from the analysed data: (i) conducive environment for thinking; (ii) facilitation strategies to stimulate foundational knowledge; and (iii) foundational, conceptual, and procedural knowledge. It was concluded that CT does not take place in a vacuum and therefore foundational knowledge will be used by students in class to answer questions and in clinical settings as they reason about patients’ health problems and to come up with relevant and accurate care plans. They will use the foundational knowledge as an anchor upon which they construct new knowledge using their facilitated CT skills.

The aims of this study were to understand and to do a critical analysis of the different indigenous systems and practices of waste management to inform waste management policy development in Lesotho. To achieve these aims, the objective was to assess community perceptions of the impact of the indigenous systems and practices of solid waste management on the environment and human wellbeing. A simple random sampling method was employed. The primary data were collected through observations and survey questionnaires that were distributed among the communities in the study areas. The sample size was 693 participants from a total estimated population of 6917 in May 2021 in the Matsieng, Koro-Koro and Rothe constituencies. The data were analysed quantitatively by using the International Business Management Statistical Package for Social Science version 25.0. The descriptive method was used to interpret the results. For validity, the interview questions were set towards answering the study research questions. For reliability, open- and close-ended questions were designed. The research clearly indicated that indigenous systems and practices are culturally accepted in areas lacking formal waste collection services by the local authorities. The tradition, culture, values, and belief of the communities play a major role in the systems and practices implemented. Although some people convert waste items into useful products, the practices of general disposal were often unsafe from the human wellbeing and environmental perspectives. In Lesotho, a lack of awareness about conservation and sustainable use of natural resources could be attributed to flawed education at the grassroots level in schools.

Solid waste management (SWM) is the greatest challenge facing environmental protection and human wellbeing in the rural communities of Maseru (Kingsom of Lesotho). A lack of formal waste management (WM) systems in rural areas of Maseru have resulted in different indigenous systems and practices of SWM. Direct observation and descriptive designs will be employed. This is a mixed methods study of qualitative, quantitative and, non-experimental. We obtained data sets from existing official census and statistics of Maseru. We sampled 693 participants from total population of 6917. We received ethical clearance from Research Ethics committee of Health Sciences at the University of Johannesburg, we recruited six field workers. We have preventive equipment (sanitizers, masks, and sterile latex gloves) for COVID-19 infections in place; we have specific design on caps, masks and bags that will identify field workers as they collect data. We will train field workers, administer questionnaires, interview, and observe participants. STATKON will analyse data. The research will share the results with the Ministry of Environment and the community in Lesotho. The results will also be used to educate the rural communities on improved WM. Where weaknesses are identified, mitigation measures can be evaluated and implemented to rectify the negative aspects and improve the systems and practices. The rural communities face challenges such as waste collection services and sanitation facilities and this fact points out that there is a gap in SWM, which favours the existence of indigenous systems and practice of SWM.

Curationis provides a forum for cutting-edge theories and research models related to the exploration of issues experienced and the best practices of nurses and midwives so as to improve nursing education, nursing administration and community nursing within Africa.