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GPHC nurses receive training in Palliative Care
By the end of July, some 70 nurses from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) will complete training in Palliative care.
Palliative care is medical care for people suffering from serious and chronic illnesses such as cancer, cardiac diseases including congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney failure, and many more.
Ann Read (centre, left) and Jan Smith (centre, right) flanked by nurses at the GPHC
Palliative care focuses on symptoms such as pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping and depression. It also helps you gain the strength to carry on with daily life. The goal is to improve the quality of life for both the patient and their family.
Spearheading the three-month programme is Ann Read, a retired palliative care nurse from the United Kingdom and her colleague, Jan Smith, a clinical nurse specialized in palliative care.
According to Read, three years ago, she came to Guyana and spent nine months training nurses from the GPHC on palliative care. She added that she has returned to do the same with the help of her colleague and best friend, Smith.
“I have decided to come to this hospital because it is a major health institution, and if we can establish a system of palliative care here, it can be spread to other hospitals,” Read stressed.
She further revealed that next Tuesday she will be speaking to a group of doctors on palliative care for one hour.
Apart from the training, Jan Smith handed over several text books on palliative care to the Georgetown Medical Library, located in the GPHC’s compound.
“I am a retired nurse with a Master of Palliative Care degree, so I have a lot of text books and I have decided to bring them out because I am no longer using them, and this hospital is very short on resources on palliative care,” Smith noted.
She added that once she returns home, she will gather a few more of her old text books and send them to the GPHC so that doctors and nurses can use them to the fullest.
Jan Smith (left) hands over a book to Nicholas Corbin, Training and Development Manager at the GPHC
“I am also planning to get some books from my colleagues as well to send here,” she stressed.
Meanwhile, on behalf of the GPHC, Owen John, the Assistant Director for Nursing Services thanked the duo for their contribution and taking the time out of their busy schedule to offer such timely and much needed training to the nurses at the hospital.
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