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From Jamaica with love

Feb 27, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Pan-American Health Organisation paid a Jamaican consultant to analyse why Guyana’s nurses are on the move outside of Guyana. I suppose the lady meant well. After all, in the Caribbean group of family, Guyanese and Jamaicans really get along. That was my experience when I studied in North America.
Her findings are confusing and, though not wanting to be harsh, do not appear to be academically grounded. I work in a similar environment as nurses and in my sphere the winged impulse is just as great. I have been at UG for 24 years and just like nurses, UG lecturers leave.
The consultant’s report is that salary alone is not the determining factor. She says that her findings reveal that nurses want a more satisfying work environment.
Take that to mean more facilities and related benefits other than salary. The lady conducted a survey and those were the attitudes that were contained therein.
My take on our Jamaican friend, she was here with an open mind, meant well, did her research and honestly believed in what she found—in Jamaica as in Guyana nurses are leaving not based on salary consideration alone.
This is where polling becomes complex. Forget about Vishnu Bisram. Let us talk about real, professional polling and the role of the environment. First thing first; Jamaica is a millions of miles away from Guyana in terms of fear of talking to a pollster. I had lunch with a Jamaican media person who came to Guyana on media business. This is how she put it in the presence of three other media operatives from Guyana and two from Trinidad. “We in Jamaica won’t tek wuh ya’all putting up with here. Ah mean violence is wrang but it will get yuh somewhere.”
A Jamaican nurse will vent her anger to a pollster more freely without a modicum of fear than what obtains in Guyana. Let me take the chauvinistic step and say that I have become an authority on the role of fear in Guyana. I saw fear under the Burnham presidency.
It is palpable nonsense and appalling asininity for anyone to interpret for me what I experience in this country everyday as a critic of state power.
I saw fear in people’s words and eyes under Burnham. Let me say most unambiguously, I see the same fear in businessmen, civil servants, teachers, the professional classes and the ordinary folks in Guyana right at this moment and I have been seeing it for years now. I would like to repeat that.
The same trepidation people had under Burnham when bad-mouthing the government, I see it in them today. In one area it is worse than in the seventies. That is at my workplace. UG lecturers were braver in their criticism against Burnham.
Hundreds, not dozens, hundreds of people would speak to me within a period of months about my critiques of elected dictatorship and never, I repeat, never, would they tell me in an open ambience what they speak to me in private. This is the story of my life in Guyana. I believe it is the same for people like Christopher Ram, Mark Benschop and opposition politicians.
Fear is a very serious problem in this country in terms of speaking out against the abuse of power by the government. Guyana is a country of frightened people and it is my intellectual position that this trepidation has allowed the government to take massive excesses.
Back to our Jamaican consultant. I don’t believe the nurses opened up to her. The salary scale is the largest reason why teachers, UG lecturers and nurses leave this land. I seriously challenge the findings our Jamaican friend.
At the West Demerara Hospital, there are a number of trainee nurses working full-time. Brace yourself for what a disgraceful government we have. These young girls work freely as trainees. They are given $4,000 monthly to support their transportation fee. Yes, $4,000 monthly. The programme, I am told, is sponsored jointly by SIMAP and the Ministry of Labour.
Is our Jamaican consultant telling us if the working conditions are improved, and salaries stay at what they are, then nurses will stay. I can’t speak for nurses but I know if you are going to attract qualified personnel to remain at UG, the salary scale has to be competitive.
We have a country where land is abundant yet nurses are not given house-lots as a special group, and I mean free lots. They are not given duty free cars. And then there is the horror ending – they retire at 55.
What does our Jamaican consultant have to say about that?

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