12 May 2012

South African Nursing Council – Recognition Awards 2012

PROFESSOR WILMA KOTZÉ

 

SUMMARY OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF PROFESSOR WILMA KOTZÉ TO THE TRANSFORMATION OF NURSING

 

Professor Kotzé served as Member of the South African Nursing Council for six consecutive terms of office from 1979 to 2003.

In her second term of office on the Council she was elected as Vice-president for the Ninth Council and thereafter as President for the Tenth and Eleventh Councils.

She served on the South African Medical and Dental Council as representative of the Tenth Council from 1989 to 1994.

She represented the South African Nursing Council at several international conferences and participated in a number of overseas assignments to study nursing education, nursing practise and professional regulatory systems abroad, the most important of which the delegation led to the East Central European Countries in 1992 to prepare Council for the management of nurses returning to the post-apartheid South Africa.

As President of the South African Nursing Council, Professor Kotzé was a member of the work group which was assigned Unification of the former Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, South African and Transkei Nursing Councils by the Minister of Health.

In 1995, with the establishment of the Interim Nursing Council, Professor Kotzé was appointed by the Minister of Health and Welfare as Member of the Interim Council, and elected by this Council as its Vice-president.  After amalgamation of the former South African, Transkei, Ciskei and Bophuthatswana Nursing Councils and the establishment of the new South African Nursing Council in 1998, she served her last term of office on Council as an elected member, in the capacity of Vice-president.

Professor Kotzé was:

	A member of the Executive Committee of Council from 1979 to 2003 (Chairperson 1989 to 1995);
	A member of the Education Committee, 1984 to 1989, and its Chairperson, 1984 to 1989;
	Chairperson of the Professional Conduct Committee 1989 to 2003; and
	Chairperson of the Laws and Practise Standards Committee, 1989 to 2003.  The ground work for the review of the Scope of Nursing Practise and development of a Charter for Nursing Practise to provide parameters for nursing practice, inform development of educational standards, the categories of nurse and qualifications needed to best serve the public and health service system in the new democratic society, and indeed inform the public of what could be expected from nurses, was done by the Laws and Practise Standards Committee during the terms of Office of the Interim Nursing Council and its successor under Chairmanship of Professor Kotzé.

Special Awards

	Degree Honorary Doctor of Science of Faculty of Health and Social Sciences of University of Kingston / St George’s Medical School, London, United Kingdom, 2005
	Lifetime Achievement Award of the Forum for Professional Nurse Leaders, 2006
	Honorary Life Membership of the Nursing Education Association, 2006