Patient Care Assistant Training Programme launched in Berbice

In a bid to improve the level of care offered to patients in the public healthcare sector, the Health Ministry on Sunday expanded its Patient Care Assistant (PCA) Training Programme to Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
The PCA Training Programme will see participation from more than 200 persons over the next four months to support nurses and other medical professionals.
The comprehensive programme includes theoretical instruction and practical clinical training. It covers basic aspects like patient care, infection prevention, medical ethics, and emergency response.
Speaking at the programme lunch on Sunday Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony stressed the importance of this initiative as the country’s health infrastructure continues to expand.
“These hospitals that we’ll be opening, they are 75 beds each, inpatient beds, but it differs from previous hospitals because for each of these 75 beds, we have smaller wards or smaller rooms… But when we move to this new standard, we’ll need many more people to be interacting with our patients because now you can’t just sit in front and you’ve got everybody in front of you like that. You wouldn’t be able to see them. So, we’ll have to make more checks we’ll have to go in, see what’s going on, and so forth to make sure that people are comfortable. And that is why one of the reasons why we have started this process of training more people.”
Moreover, Anthony encouraged the programme’s participants to continue upskilling themselves. In fact, he revealed that the PCA Training Programme will open avenues for persons who are interested in climbing the medical ladder.
“You would learn some very basic things about how to care for people in a hospital institution. While we start you off there, there are other courses that you can join so that you can move from a patient care assistant to, let’s say, a nursing assistant. And then from a nursing assistant, we want some of you, if not all of you, to become registered nurses so there’s an upward trajectory”
Notably, recognising that most persons stray away from upskilling themselves due to the availability of programmes in the region. Dr Anthony highlighted that the Ministry is currently constructing a new training institute that will offer a wide variety of programmes.
“We have started now the construction of a new training facility. That facility would have a lot of classrooms. It would have simulation labs and a whole host of things that can assist with teaching persons in the medical profession. Currently, the Ministry of Health, we have about 20 training programmes… But most of these programmes were based in Georgetown. So a lot of people who might have had a desire to be trained did not have these opportunities they had to go to Georgetown to get this training.”