Nurse Practitioners’ Bill likely by 2011

Feb 03, 2010 News

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– Health Minister
By Sharmain Cornette

A new Nurse Practitioners’ Bill is likely to be in place by next year which is intended to ensure that continued nursing education becomes compulsory rather than an optional endeavour within the local health sector. Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, made this disclosure yesterday even as he recounted the journey thus far to make continued education move a reality.
The Minister said that it was in 1997 that he was appointed Director of the Health Sector Reform Unit and was tasked with working along with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to develop a Draft Bill to change the regulatory framework for nursing.
In addition to the Bill, he said, there were plans to introduce new categories of nursing. At that time, the minister revealed that there was only one specialist nurse category that was recognised. It was for this very reason, the Minister said, that the draft bill itself was called Nurse Practitioner and Midwife Ordinance, thus emphasising that it was only the midwife that was recognised.
“So you couldn’t become a ward sister or eventually a matron unless you were a staff/nurse midwife. If you were trained as an anaesthetic nurse you had to abandon anaesthetic nursing to do midwifery because if you stayed you could not be promoted.”
However, the midwifery requirement has since been ruled out as a requirement factor much to the great chagrin of many of the senior nurses who dominated within the Nursing Council, the Minister disclosed.
“I can say that and I can hold my head up high because no nurse in Guyana said no. The problem is that we got engaged with consultation and every week I went with the document the nurses dutifully sat around and said we are studying the document.”   However, he revealed that the changes were not made possible until he became Minister of Health.
With the changes of that draft legislation, the Minister said that anaesthetic and paediatric nurses among others became recognised without forfeiting their original training. According to the Minister, it was in recognition of the fact that “you can’t change conditions unless you have the legal framework,” in 2003 the Health Ministry in collaboration with PAHO and the European Union were able to draft an agreement with the nurses for the proposed Bill.
Yet again the nurses required another chance to study the draft bill, the Minister noted, even as he opined that up to July 17 last year, when fire destroyed the Health Ministry’s headquarters, the nurses were still studying the draft bill.
“It was just the week before that I had publicly said that I am moving to introduce the bill in the National Assembly of Guyana and so there was an ultimatum. My problem is that my copies – hardcopy and electronic – were burnt in the fire.”
Even though everybody with a copy of that document did not have an office at the Ministry, everybody’s copies burnt with the fire.” The only piece of document relating to that proposed Bill that was recovered was a draft plan of what the Bill should be. As a result, the Minister said that he is prepared to start the process all over again, given the fact that nurses will have to play an integral role in the improvement of the health sector.
“The fact of the matter is that the conditions we have now can improve and may make a difference in terms of migration. Many efforts are being made but we need to work more diligently in addressing the issue.” And the issue of human resource, the Minister said, is already being addressed at a Caribbean level. At the local level, he noted that nursing has moved forward with a degree programme at the University of Guyana and talks have commenced about a Masters Programme.
According to Ramsammy, the best investment the Government can offer at this time would be to invest in the training of professional nurses. Through a Health System Strengthening Programme at Global Fund, the local Health Ministry has been able to access US$2M that will go towards improving the nursing programme. “I hope we could develop a reasonable programme that will have an impact in the quality of nursing.”
And the law will be required, the Minister noted, because like other health professionals, nursing must introduce a continuing education as part of the annual licensing renewal process. He emphasised that continuing education must become an imperative and not simply an option.
“It must be an absolute requirement for continued registration of nurses. Health and Medicine are changing, new techniques and new approaches are available on an almost daily basis. We cannot have an end of education after graduation. Every other professional has adopted the continuing education model for licensing, so should the nurses,” the Minister noted.
And since this continued education has attracted discussion since 1997, the Minister is hopeful that a new Nurse Practitioner Bill will be in place by next year, which will ensure that continued nursing education becomes a reality.

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