Latest update January 1st, 2025 1:00 AM
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Guyana turns to Cuba for help as local nurses bolt to UK, other countries
Kaieteur News – Noting that there is a shortage of nurses in the local health system, President Irfaan Ali on Wednesday said that his government is engaging Cuba on having nurses from there come into Guyana’s workforce.
The President made the disclosure during a press conference with the media at his Shiv Chanderpaul Drive office.
While answering questions from the media, the Head of State said that one of the main issues facing the Caribbean region right now is the outward movement of nurses and health workers.
President Irfaan Ali
According to him places such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Europe are facing the same shortages, hence now the world is on an active drive of recruiting nurses all over.
“Only yesterday I met with a number of nurses at the Georgetown Public Hospital and they were so happy for the work they were doing, and that some of them are doubling up on shifts because of the shortage. When I spoke to the administration of the Georgetown Public Hospital it was said they now have hundreds of nurses short of their full compliment,” he related.
In dealing with the issue, the President said that is why his government is moving decisively on a number of training programmes for nurses and bringing more nurses into the system. “So we have to find the immediate measure, the medium term and long term. The medium and long term is to train and retrain and train more than the capacity that you need but the immediate term for example for nurses is to have nurses come into the system from external sources,” he explained.
In terms of the medium and long term approach, President Ali said in his statement yesterday that they have a programme now for anyone with the entry requirement to come and do nursing. He noted that they have expanded their post graduate training at the Georgetown Public Hospital with 16 post graduate programmes and is looking to add more lately in the year. “We are developing a hybrid nursing programme to increase training of nurses from about 150 to 200 per year to now enable us to train between 1000 to 1500 nurses per year. This programme has already started and not only the training of nurses, we are also working on specialized areas for nurses,” he disclosed.
While training is being offered to get nurses in the system, the President said they are also looking at the present situation where there is a shortage. He further commented that on Wednesday morning he held discussion with the Cuban Ambassador to have nurses come into the country.
“Up to this morning I had a long discussion with the Ambassador to see if he can get Cuban nurses to come into the system now, in the immediate period to help to fill that gap because of the tremendous shortage that we have,” the President shared yesterday.
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