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GPHC closer to having qualified nephrology nurses
With strategic support, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has been offering a wide range of services to its clientele. Among the most crucial services being offered is that of kidney transplant.
Nurse Deborah Patterson (centre) is flanked by nurses Tiffany Stanton (L) and Shamika McIntosh-Miggins
The hospital already has on board a Kidney Transplant surgeon in the person Dr. Kishore Persaud. Dr. Persaud’s expertise has seen him leading a number of individual transplant surgeries. This, of course, is after the requisite cross-matching tests are undertaken overseas.
However, with the support of experts from the Calgary Medical Centre of Canada, a total of three kidney transplants were conducted earlier this month.
The transplant surgeries in fact served as a teaching ground for a number of nurses of the GPHC.
Among those recently trained was Nurse in Charge of the Female High Dependency Unit, Deborah Patterson. According to Nurse Patterson, she has been in charge of the unit for the past two years, but was recently exposed to perhaps the most intense nursing training of her life, during sessions conducted by experts of the Calgary Medical Centre.
Among the nurses that were trained were nurses Shamika McIntosh-Miggins and Tiffany Stanton.
The intent of the training was to prepare a team of local nurses to support kidney transplants when they are being done at the GPHC.
Nurses Patterson, in addition to McIntosh-Miggins and Stanton, and 22 other nurses, was exposed to the training.
“This was a good experience because you got to see from beginning to end the whole amazing process. Most people have kidney failure and they live up to two years, but the fact that you can add a new life or add 15 years to someone’s life is a new experience,” said an evidently elated Nurse Patterson.
“It is a new experience because of the fact that we have worked with people who are actually qualified to be transplant nurses. We had workshops and some training sessions to enlighten us about the basic things, because as you know we don’t have much speciality in Guyana…but this is where we are aiming to go,” Nurse Patterson asserted.
She noted that while usually multiple transplants over a few days are done with the support of a visiting the team, local personnel were exposed to the process and the possibility of doing kidney transplants and realising success too.
“The idea is for us to have a pool of nurses so every time transplant are done here there will be a set of nurses who will work in this area,” Nurse Patterson explained as she pointed out that “what we are looking for is to collaborate with the Calgary University so we can be qualified as nephrology transplant nurses, so we can work hands-on with every decision we make for our patients.”
With the training that the nurses have gained, they are now capable of independently offering post-operative care to kidney transplant patients. This was particularly evident when this publication visited the Female High Dependency Unit where the nurses were busy attending to the three patients who were the most recent subjects of kidney transplants at the GPHC.
“Basically we give them (patients) one-on-one care and overall the experience has been good,” said Nurse Patterson with pride.
“With this training that we have gotten, I know for me, my knowledge has been enhanced a whole lot…I was accustomed to generalised nursing alone, but with nephrology care you look keenly at everything that works with the kidney, so we know exactly what to look for when we look at our post-transplant patients,” Patterson asserted.
She is especially pleased to be a part of the recently trained team since according to her, “we are helping people to go on with their lives and there is no better feeling than to help bring about a positive change.”
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