Home News Global shortage of nurses: Pres Ali pitches solution for Guyana, Canada to...
Amid the global shortage of nurses, President Dr Irfaan Ali on Thursday night pitched a solution which can see Guyana and Canada working together to provide human resource assets needed to address the deficits in healthcare sectors around the world.
The Head of State declared that healthcare is an extremely competitive field right now. He said more attractive markets are attracting an already limited global pool of nurses, and this issue is also affecting the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
“Within Caricom, the more attractive markets would pull from within the system, leaving further deficit in some countries…,” President Ali explained. However, he said Guyana and Canada, as development partners, can work together to address this growing problem.
“It is very important for us, as development partners in this region, to examine the human resource constraint that we face. And we’re a part of many different organisations; we’re a family in the Commonwealth Group of Countries. You play an important role in Caricom and you will understand that the human resource deficit, the important areas that ensure social justice from the level of service that a country can give to its people, is an important area…so whilst we speak about our joint approach on the big issues like energy, food and climate change…it is important…that we take a joint approach in terms of the human resource deficit, and see how we can work out a common agenda which we can build a system that can support the requirements of both countries and our region as a whole,” Ali expressed.
Against this backdrop, he highlighted that many local healthcare workers are doing specialised training and studies at various institutions in Canada, whether through distance learning, face-to-face contact, or through trainers coming to Guyana. As such, President Ali made a pitch to position Guyana as a key destination for the provision of human resources for the healthcare sector.
“I want to position Guyana as an important destination for the provision of regional human resource assets to meet the skill deficit of countries around the region. And here is where I think there is tremendous opportunity for Canada and Guyana, in which we are building the infrastructure for training institutions to train for global needs.”
President Ali went on to encourage Canadian-accredited institutions to establish their footprints in Guyana. “For the training of nurses to meet your own demand; for the training of medical technicians to meet your own demand, and also to meet the regional demand. This, in turn,” Ali said, “will also benefit Guyana.”
He noted, too, that his Government will push to have its training centres for nurses to be accredited by Canadian standards.
“We’re going to be opening up discussion with our development partners in having our nursing institutions and other institutions accredited by your standard. I believe that if our nurses are good enough to be recruited from the training they received right here within Caricom, we’re good enough to sell that service to train them to the rest of the world. And that is a business opportunity that we’re working on to create in Guyana, an avenue for global training and global education,” he disclosed.
Double Shifts
President Ali had previously disclosed that there is a shortage of nurses in the hundreds at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) alone – forcing some of these healthcare workers to double up on shifts. In order to address this matter in the short-term, Guyana has turned to Cuba for help. The President told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday that he has already spoken to the Cuban Ambassador to Guyana, Jorge Francisco Soberón Luis, on the possibility of that country sending nurses to Guyana to help fill the gap.
“One of the main issues facing the region now is the outward movement of our nurses and health workers,” President Ali declared during the press conference. “I met with a number of nurses at Georgetown Hospital, and they were so happy for the work they’re doing that some of them are doubling up on shifts because of the shortage. When I spoke to the administration of Georgetown Public Hospital, they now have hundreds of nurses short of their full complement…,” he explained.
While Government has embarked on a number of training programmes aimed at recruiting more nurses, the Head of State said, it has reached out to Cuba for immediate relief. “…to see if we can get Cuban nurses to come into the system now to help to fill that gap, because of the tremendous shortage that we have,” he explained.
President Ali has said that, currently, there are more than 1200 Guyanese registered in nursing programmes nationally. He also noted that Government has been ramping up its training programmes in order to expand and improve its human resource assets in the healthcare sector. He said that, at the GPHC, there are 16 post graduate programmes, and this year another will be added to specialise more doctors in the field of neurology. Additionally, he said there are plans to increase the training for various categories of doctors, including surgeons, gynecologists and paediatricians.
Specifically for nurses, the Head of State spoke of the recently-launched hybrid nursing programme which is intended to increase the training of nurses from 150-200 per year to between 1000-1500 per year. President Ali also mentioned plans to offer specialised training for nurses through a post-graduate programme. He also spoke about the need to train more trauma nurses.
“…that is why we’re moving massively on this training programme for nurses and bringing more nurses in the system, because there’s shortage in Canada, UK, Europe, US…so the whole world now is on an active drive of recruiting nurses all over,” President Ali expressed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented that there is a global shortage of health workers, in particular nurses and midwives, who represent more than 50 per cent of the current shortage of health workers. For all countries to reach Sustainable Development Goal 3 on health and wellbeing, WHO estimates that the world would need an additional 9 million nurses and midwives by the year 2030.
“Nurses and midwives are central to primary healthcare, and are often the first and sometimes the only health professional that people see; and the quality of their initial assessment, care and treatment is vital,” the WHO outlined.
Meanwhile, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) has said the worldwide shortage of nurses should be treated as a global health emergency. (G11)
