Latest update April 18th, 2025 8:12 AM
Local nurses in need of professional code of conduct – Veteran Nurse – Must be exposed to continued nursing education
Nurse Leslyn Holder
Having practiced nursing overseas for a number of years, veteran nurse Leslyn Holder is advocating for a professional code of conduct for local nurses. Holder, who practised for several years in Guyana before leaving to serve in a number of nursing positions in the United Kingdom, returned to Guyana in 2015. She is currently offering an advanced level of nursing within the private health sector.
However, she disclosed during a recent interview with this publication that she is on a mission to work closely with both public and private health institutions to help make a professional code of conduct for nurses a reality.
A move in this direction is particularly important, Holder said, since many nurses are not protected when they encounter some challenges they face in doing their work. Holder is well aware that this should be a given for practicing nurses, because of her experience overseas. “Overseas, when you register, you have a professional code of conduct where you are updated on all of the regulations…all the things that will keep you safe,” Holder related.
Her concern was evoked by numerous reports where health workers, primarily nurses, are blamed for shortcomings within the health system.
“I have been reading in the papers for the longest while, we have all these baby deaths and all the blame seems to be directed to the nurses and on the institutions too, and yes, we can’t run away from the fact that something had to have gone wrong with our care for that to happen,” Holder shared.
She however continued by pointing out, “It is not necessarily that the nurse is wrong or that she [or he] is right, it is just that the nurse sometimes lacks the awareness or support, or even the institution lacks the awareness, as it relates to what is important or what is needed and how to do follow-ups and how to do audits, and what should be in place to safeguard nurses as professionals”.
In light of this, Holder said that she is gearing to start a petition which is likely to see the advocacy for the professional code of conduct being agitated by other in the profession.
“I have already been speaking to some nurses overseas for us to develop the code of conduct,” said Holder who disclosed that “we work currently with the international standards, which is an American thing.”
Nurses overseas, Holder revealed, have far more to function with to support nursing while, “here in Guyana there is not a lot of support, so we have to have a professional code of conduct that supports us and supports our work, so that when things happen, like babies dying, and all the incidents we hear about, that nurses understand that there are guidelines of what they should do,” said Holder.
Even as she amplified the need for the code of conduct, Holder also stressed the need for nurses to recognise that being a good nurse requires work that goes beyond the classroom. “We need to get nurses more up to speed. There is more to nursing than the three years in classroom, when you are finished with that three years in classroom the responsibility and onus is now on you to keep studying so you can function effectively for the rest of your nursing career,” Holder asserted.
It was just this practise that Holder learnt when she started practising as a nurse overseas. According to Holder, practising overseas allowed her to see that there were many more aspects of nursing that many Guyanese nurses may only encounter in the textbooks.
In order to prepare for just about any possibility, Holder insisted, “nursing education must be ongoing, and this is what is severely lacking in Guyana. So I would really like to make a huge contribution to continuing nursing education.”
Currently, Holder is in the process of developing a framework for continued nursing education. “This is a big thing for me at the moment and I am going to be having discussions with the Ministry of Health…I have already met with the CEO of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and the CEO of Mercy Hospital, and it is my hope that we can formalise some programmes that can be offered to nurses,” Holder said.
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