Nursing educators cannot be blamed for downfall of system – GNA Executive

Mar 30, 2017 News

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– “It is time policymakers step up”

The nursing education system will continue to fail if remedial measures are not put in place immediately. This deduction has been made by Nurse Educator and Executive Member of the Guyana Nurses Association, Ms. Cleopatra Barkoye.
Barkoye in a missive seen by this publication asserted that “teaching in any Government nursing school is having a basket to fetch water.” She went on to qualify her assertion by sharing what some has described as the genesis of the downfall of nursing education. “In the past, some smart Minister had a mandate to mass produce nurses so in 2008 the Georgetown School of Nursing was forced to take 145 students in one class.”
She said that in 2010, a total of 231 persons were sent, all to one class. Faced with this daunting state of affairs Barkoye said that “the tutors on the professional [nurses] programme used their God-given imagination to work in classrooms without any public address system.”
According to Barkoye, “The 2010 student intake took five to six years (of a two-year programme) to see it through the school system…” During this time three tutors retired, two resigned and three new teachers joined the staff.
In 2011, a total of 127 persons were sent to be registered in the professional nursing programme but according to Barkoye by the following year the Ministry of Health wanted the Georgetown School of Nursing to also enrol students on the evening shift. Forty-four persons were admitted on the evening shift.
This, Barkoye recalled, led to the rebellion of nursing tutors. “The Guyana Nurses Association supported them by hosting a press conference to assist the faculty with their cry for help. The teachers knew, then, that after many days the basket would give,” Barkoye noted.
She explained that the New Amsterdam School of Nursing, which is physically housed in two homes, has three full-time tutors and a student population of 148 in five different groups in three programmes. Then there is the Charles Roza School of Nursing which has 11 full-time tutors with a student population of 237 in eight different classes on three separate programmes on two shifts.
The Georgetown School of Nursing on the other hand has 347 students on two shifts in two buildings and seven full-time tutors. Students in this instance, Barkoye said, undergo three programmes in 13 different classes.
Given the related teaching challenges, Barkoye noted that “the need for more full-time tutors and clinical instructors was pointed out on numerous occasions to the Ministry of Health by all three [nursing school] principals at various times since this saga started.”
She, however, noted that while the curriculum specified clinical instructors to work alongside the students, the job description resembled that of a tutor thus the position was not created by the Public Service Ministry.
The resulting situation was that “the practice site was and is a disaster zone where the students were left, so only the fit shall survive,” Barkoye added.
A total of 179 students were required to re-sit the examination last month but based on the results seen by this publication only 23 of the lot, from across the nursing schools, secured overall passes. The nursing schools that participated in the State Finals were the Georgetown School of Nursing, the New Amsterdam School of Nursing, the Charles Roza School of Nursing and the privately operated St. Joseph Mercy Hospital.
Reports suggest that the performance of the re-sit seems to be on par with the performance of those admitted to the programme in 2010.
The daunting performance of students might have been amplified by the fact that many students were not willing to utilise. “The old out-dated library was not utilised not even to its minimum, since the young generation preferred the technology of which no Government Nursing School had,” said Barkoye.
She related that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry in an intervening move requested that nursing educators adopt the use of technology to teach. But according to Barkoye, “the Georgetown School only had one projector that went from class to class from morning till night; eventually it broke down. To date the only projector given through the Ministry was one that came in the form of a donation…”
According to Barkoye, the nursing school has existed on donations of textbooks and other teaching-learning material from kind nurses who reside abroad and other organisations. “The Ministry has only bought one set of texts, I will not say the number. Although grateful this was not enough to teach 500 students then and not sufficient for the 347 students now in 13 different classes across three programme,” Barkoye asserted.
But the nursing educator has underscored that “…this is not even half of the issues nurse educators face every day.” She however noted that “the nurse educators do not ask for sympathy only staff and materials promptly to do the best job. It is time the policymakers step up to the table and play a fair game.”
Given the forgoing challenges outlined, Barkoye assured that the nursing educators, both full time and part time, are hard-working in their quest to prepare “a professional group of nurses who are capable of delivering comprehensive nursing care to individuals, families and groups in institutional and non-institutional settings.”

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