Openning a private practice as a Nurse Practitioner in South Africa: The Legalities

 Nursing Practitioner's (NP's)  that go into private practice in South Africa are still not common . Normally when you find one , she is either a wound care nurse , diabetic nurse or a HIV/AIDS counsellor in hospital - working per referral.

I decided I wanted to run a private healthcare facility that will offer community nursing health services . I wanted to make my services : ACCESSIBLE , AFFORDABLE AND QUALITY. Pardon me if I get distracted , I am not really a blogger but I love reading which is partly the reason I was inspired to do this blog.

Now to the back to the legal aspect of starting a private practice in RSA : 1. South African Nursing Council (SANC) : you need to have paid your annual fees with SANC .
2. Register as an Independent Practitioner with the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) .
3. Get your Section 22(A) 15 Permit via Dept of Health Licensing Unit or get your dispensing licence with the South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC)
4. PREMISES : find suitable premises - SAPC might want to make a site visit before they issue you with a dispensing Licence or Permit.
5. It is not imperative to register your clinic with cipc as a company but if you choose to go that route then there is absolutely no problem .

BHF only accepts posted applications - no faxing or sending via email , my advise is its better to go there personally . BHF members come from South Africa , Botswana, Lesotho , Malawi , Mozambique, Namibia , Swaziland and Zimbabwe - so you can imagine how much work and applications get processed in this office .

Dispensing License takes 6 months in total - do not believe any organisation that says you can get it in 3 days , weeks or 3 months with them - and end up wasting a lot of money thinking you are speeding things up like I did because this is IMPOSSIBLE. So in your planning give yourself enough time and allowance to get it before openning up . Or in the case of a permit be aware that the SAPC Committe that grants nurses / midwifes , clinical technologist and optometrists licences only sits once in 3 months .

Planning is key to avoid future challenges . So plan and implement - timing is also very important ... Goodluck !!!