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Who has been monitoring these hapless nursing candidates?

Jun 29, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
As a  British trained Registered Nurse, Certified Midwife, Registerd Mental Nurse , New York and Canadian Licenced Nurse with Baccalaureate degree, and laying full claim to being of Guyanese heritage I was nonetheless perturbed and totally discomfited at reading of the recent disastrous nursing results.  The question that immediately springs to mind is: Quo Vadis? Whither to? Are the nurses to blame? Certainly not! Who has been teaching them? It is apparent that it has not reached them. Is there an apparent misfit between student, teacher and teaching material. The teacher is not effective as a reacher or a preacher. I am calling on the Chief Minister of Health to examine the teaching strategies/ qualification of those who are partly if not fully entrusted with the future of Guyana’s health improvement. I am going to take the place of Marcellus in the well-known Shakespearean play ‘Hamlet’ and loudly proclaim that there is something rotten in the county of Berbice. Where were the nursing instructors trained? What credentials do they bring to the teaching environment? Are they supervised? If so by whom? Are they subjected to any form of professional development?
In most nursing programmes abroad, nursing students are expected to pass all nursing courses. Many nursing schools have progression policies that insist on a certain grade percentage for the student to pass and limit the number of courses a student may fail. Who has been monitoring these hapless candidates along their nursing path? Shame! Shame and a triple heaping of more shame on Dr. Shamdeo Persaud who had promised to conduct an investigation on becoming aware of this tragedy, but failed to do so. Why does Guyana have to conduct everything in such a third world manner? Should not such an occurrence jolt him off his haunches and spur him into action? Or am i being too realistic ?. . “As baby boomers continue to age, the need for health care grows.” With today’s aging population, nurses are a necessary resource. Who in Guyana is aware of this fact?
The article also further attributes as another causal factor the inadequate qualifications of potential nurses. Many have been admitted to the training school not possessing adequate or at best the basic  entry qualifications.  It would be foolhardy then to expect Ivy league results from such a situation. Well fertilized plants yield bounty crops. Then there is the overcrowding issue. Previously poor results at the Georgetown Hospital should certainly serve as a deterrent and guideline to controlling entry numbers.
The fact that this academic aberration made front page media occupancy should serve as an immediate, call, plea and cry for the Minister of Health and all other relevant Health authorities to follow the foregoing recommendations if there is to be an improvement and non-recurrence of such a dismal nature.
That the educational material be evaluated to ensure fit between teacher and learner and expected end result.
Investigation of the qualifications and instructional experience of the teaching personnel as well as supervision of their teaching strategies,
Analysis of the results and possible causal or attributive factors. Guyana in its current moribund ste cannot afford theses nursing failures Resuscitative measures are urgently needed if survival is to be assured.
Y. Sam.  R.N. S.C.M. R.M.N . BSN. Med.

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