History of ANSA

LAUNCH OF THE ACADEMY OF NURSING OF SOUTH AFRICA (ANSA) 2011 

Press release: June 2011 

The Academy of Nursing of South Africa is a new body constituted with the vision of recognising and utilizing excellence in nursing and midwifery in South Africa. The launch and the recognition of the first Fellows is scheduled to take place at the Nursing Education Conference at Sun City on the 3^rd August 2011.

The academy of nursing is a group of nurses and midwives who are recognized by the professions for their expertise indifferent areas of nursing and who works together as a think-tank to improve nursing and health education, practice, scholarship, and management.

Academy membership falls into the following broad categories of expertise and leadership of nurses or midwives:

• Clinicians develops clinical practice of nursing to improve quality and implement new knowledge in the field;
• Scholars develops new knowledge about health and nursing and disseminates this knowledge appropriately;
• Educators develops education systems, e.g. schools or colleges, programmes and units that are innovative and based on new knowledge and skills and that promote the preparation of competent practitioners and scholars;
• Managers develops health and nursing systems for care delivery that promotes quality of practice.

Although some members are active and even excel in more than one category, only one is indicated below as the major contributor to their election

The founder members of the Academy are as follows: 

It was decided to elect a four-person Steering Committee to take forward the critical activities of the Academy. A group email will be used to communicate with members and the email addresses will be made available to all members. The Steering Committee will elect a Chair when they meet. The four members were:

• Prof Petra Brysiewicz
• Ms Eileen Brannigan
• Dr Heilie Uys
• Dr Tanya Heyns

The critical activities this Steering Committee had to persue were:

• Finalise the constitution by end of September;
• Decide when and how new members will be invited, elected and inaugurated;
• Develop a communication strategy, including an identity (logo) to introduce it self to other science bodies and associations;
• Revisit the membership fee.

ELECTION OF FIRST ANSA BOARD 

On 23rd  November 2012 the Steering Committee and Founder Fellows met at the FUNDISA Head office to finalise the Constitution and determine the way forward.

At this meeting the first ANSA Board was elected, namely:

• Chairperson – Prof D Van Rooyen (nominated by Dr S Vasuthevan)
• Vice – Chairperson – Dr S Vasuthevan (nominated by Dolly Nyasulu)
• Treasurer – Dr H Uys (supported by Mrs B Kapambwe)
• Secretary – Prof P Brysiewicz
• Members of the Founding board – Prof M Poggenpoel & Ms L Pretorius

Publications:

• Peer reviewed articles: 97
• Professional articles: 30
• Books or chapters in books: 28 

Honours:

• Received the Nell J Watts Lifetime Achievement Award from STTI in November 2011.
• Awarded the “Women Super Achiever’s Award” by the Asian Business Schools Awards in July 2010.
• Nominated and accepted into the membership of the South African Academy of Science, October, 2009.
• Winner of the category Education and Training in the CEO Magazine’s competition to identify the Most Influential Women in South Africa, 2009.
• Mary Tolle Wright Founders Award for Excellence in Leadership: Sigma Theta Tau International, 3-7 November, 2007, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

• Rated as a B category scientist by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2008. This category indicates persons “enjoy considerable international recognition by their peers for the high quality impact of their recent research” according to the NRF definition.

• Honorary Life Membership of Democratic Nurses Organization of SA March 2001-04-09 for contribution to the transformation of the nursing organization in South Africa.