Latest update April 18th, 2025 8:12 AM
Two local health professionals graduate from new UWI leadership programme
From left: Dr Shanti Singh, Dr Leslie Ramsammy and Dr Karen Boyle
By Sharmain Cornette
Although the Caribbean has a large group of competent public health workers there is still a lack of leadership in this area. It was against this background that two local health professionals were exposed to an intense and extensive training programme at the University of the West Indies.
Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy on Wednesday commended and introduced the two newly trained public health leaders – Doctors Shanti Singh and Karen Boyle – into the sector.
The Minister observed that over the years there was a high dependency on Health Ministers across the Caribbean. “The leadership should come from public health professionals. We lack that level of leadership so we have been addressing this issue in the Caribbean.”
And while academic facilities the likes of the University of the West Indies have been graduating people with Masters in Public Health, those are more operational types of training, according to Minister Ramsammy.
He asserted that such graduates do not have the kind of training that is required for leadership in public health.
However, UWI under the urging of Ministers of Health developed the Caribbean Health Leadership Institute (CHLI).
Programme Director of the National AIDS Programme Secretariat, Dr Shanti Singh and Dr Karen Boyle, who is associated with the GHARP II programme, were among the first two health professionals to register for the course. They became eligible to be a part of the first batch of graduates, an event that was slated to be undertaken on Wednesday.
And this recent development, Minister Ramsammy said, will be an impetus to help create a cadre of public health leaders in the local system.
“If you look at all the gains we have made in the Caribbean, outside of North America and Western Europe, we have the best health care. Our life expectancy is the best outside of those regions. But we in the Caribbean have never accepted second best, we don’t accept that…We want to be like the Europeans and like the North Americans…
“Maybe we don’t have the kind of resources that Europe and North America have, but we want the same health care.”
As a result, efforts have been made to ensure that through public health leadership “we can make the best use of the resources we have,” the Minister added.
This is crucial, he said, because it has been observed that in spite of all the progress made in the health sector, there is still an increase in obesity, sedentary and unhealthy eating habits. And there are yet the issues of tobacco, alcohol abuse and the foods that are imported that must be monitored, a development, which cannot be realised without public health leaders, the Minister added.
“This is a great initiative by the University of the West Indies. And what is great about it is that it has changed the way that training is being done. In the past, we had to send people away for two years and we didn’t have them here. But now we can keep them here, they can do their work while they are getting their education and training, as most of the studies were done from here through video conferencing and so on.”
The course lasted for 18 months and the two local graduates were only required to travel to Jamaica on three occasions since it was required that they be physically present in a classroom.
This new mode of training, according to the Minister, will allow the Ministry to train more of its personnel. However, the only challenge attached to this arrangement is the cost of the course. But Dr Ramsammy revealed that the Ministry is working with UWI to reduce the current cost.
The Minister expects that another local candidate will this year embark on the programme. The next possible candidate, he opined, would most likely be Director of the Adolescent and Health Department, Dr Marcia Paltoo.
“Once we could get the resources I hope that she could join that class, as this is a great step forward for public health in the Caribbean.”
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