Significant increase in salary, but no change in working conditions will not stop nurses from migrating

Feb 28, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
In Saturday February 27 issue of the Kaieteur News, Mr. Kissoon in his column took to task a Jamaican researcher for her findings on why Guyanese nurses migrate.
I have not read the lady’s work but from what I gathered she concluded that Guyanese nurses leave not only because of poor remuneration but also because of the poor conditions under which they work.
Mr. Kissoon, an “academic”, then interprets this as suggesting that if the working conditions of nurses are greatly improved that the study suggests they would stay. What he failed to note is that with a “significant” increase in salary, but no change in working conditions, the study seems to suggest that nurses would still leave. This conclusion does not negate, nor diminish the importance of salaries and wages. Moreover, there are other factors, such as family ties, better opportunities for children etc. which all contribute to nurses leaving.
No organisation needs a nurse migration study to merely conclude that remuneration is a significant contributory factor behind the exodus of nurses, and as such any useful research would seek to identify, and better understand, as many contributory factors as is practically possible. Researchers might even attempt to rank the significance of the factors affecting migration. After all, a thorough, and holistic, understanding of the phenomenon is needed as a guide for effective policy making by governments and international institutions.
Mr. Kissoon also suggests that the researcher’s work may not have been of a high academic standard, but then he fails to give specific reasons for his assertion. Many persons have written Mr. Kissoon off as crazy, and as such do not pay him, and his writings, any mind; for the record I am no psychologist and as such I will refrain from labeling him as such, or attacking his character in any way, not for “fear” of his pen, but because I think we should be civil towards each other and focus on the issues at hand even if we disagree. What I will conjecture, however, is that Mr. Kissoon has been writing too much which probably affects the “quality” of his work; any columnist would agree that it is difficult to write a quality, relevant, thought provoking and penetrating weekly column, imagine then what it would take to write a daily column.
S. Braithwaite

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Significant increase in salary, but no change in working conditions will not stop nurses from migrating

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