In this Act, unless the context indicates otherwise—

"auxiliary midwife"

means a person who prior to the commencement of this Act was enrolled or eligible to be enrolled with the Council as such;

"auxiliary nurse"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 31;

"code"

means the code of conduct, good practice and any other code made under this Act;

"Council"

means the South African Nursing Council contemplated in section 2;

"database"

means an integrated system of particulars of persons registered under this Act, nursing education institutions and nursing agencies kept by the Council to meet its information processing and retrieval requirements in terms of this Act;

"Director-General"

means the head of the national Department of Health;

"fruitless and wasteful expenditure"

has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act No. 1 of 1999);

"health care user"

has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the National Health Act, 2003 (Act No. 61 of 2003);

"health establishment"

has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the National Health Act, 2003 (Act No. 61 of 2003);

"health services"

has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the National Health Act, 2003 (Act No. 61 of 2003);

"irregular expenditure"

means expenditure, other than unauthorised expenditure—

"learner midwife"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 32;

"learner nurse"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 32;

"midwife"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 31;

"midwifery"

refers to a caring profession practised by persons registered under this Act, which supports and assists the health care user and in particular the mother and baby, to achieve and maintain optimum health during pregnancy, all stages of labour and the puerperium;

"Minister"

means the Minister of Health;

"national department"

means the national Department of Health;

"nurse"

means a person registered in a category under section 31(1) in order to practise nursing or midwifery;

"nursing"

means a caring profession practised by a person registered under section 31, which supports, cares for and treats a health care user to achieve or maintain health and where this is not possible, cares for a health care user so that he or she lives in comfort and with dignity until death;

"nursing education institution"

means any nursing education institution accredited by the Council in terms of this Act;

"nursing service"

means any service within the scope of practice of a practitioner;

"practitioner"

means any person registered in terms of section 31(1) of this Act;

"prescribed"

means prescribed by regulation;

"professional nurse"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 31;

"register"

means a register containing the names and other particulars of all persons registered in terms of section 31, 32 or 33 and additional qualifications registered in terms of section 34;

"Registrar"

means the person appointed in terms of section 18;

"regulation"

means any regulation made in terms of section 58;

"rule"

means any rule made in terms of section 59;

"scope of practice"

means the scope of practice of a practitioner that corresponds to the level contemplated in section 30 in respect of that practitioner;

"staff nurse"

means a person registered as such in terms of section 31;

"this Act"

includes the regulations;

"unauthorised expenditure"

means expenditure that is not in accordance with the budget of the Council or that takes place outside of the systems of financial and risk management and internal control of the Council contemplated in section 29(2);

"unprofessional conduct"

means a conduct which, with regard to the profession of a practitioner, is improper, disgraceful, dishonourable or unworthy.