GPHC short of 600 nurses

Dec 30, 2023 News

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…Govt. to recruit 200 Cuban nurses early next year

Kaieteur News – The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), also known as the country’s main referral hospital, has a deficit of about 600 nurses to meet its needs and achieve industry standard.

This is according to GPHC’S Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robbie Rambarran, who made the disclosure at the hospital’s end-of-the-year press conference on Thursday.

Giving an overview of the hospital’s performance in 2023, the CEO said one of the main challenges that GPHC has been dealing with is the shortage of nursing staff. He said, “we have a deficit of about 55 percent in our direct nursing care, that is maybe about 600 nurses we need, and this is to take industry standard.”

Also speaking of the hospital’s nursing capacity on Thursday was Director of Nursing Services, Leslyn Holder.

Holder said there were 896 nursing staff at the start of January 2023 of which 116 were from the Ministry of Health. She said that at the end of November, there were 881 staff remaining. The Director of Nursing Services said too that during 2023, 86 personnel were hired and two rehired while 146 persons resigned.

Holder said based on the numbers, the hospital is facing challenges. “There are gaps in the following areas as it relates to patient care; daily staffing of various wards and units and this can result in key components in care that can be affected such as activities of daily living,” she said.

She added, “That is what support is needed; additional support is needed during their (patient) hospital stay, at times our goals for optimum healthcare or patient care can be affected.”

It was noted at the press conference that the hospital currently has 33 nurses out of Cuba working with them and an appeal has been made with the Health Ministry to have more come on board.

Meanwhile, during the Health Ministry’s year-end press conference on Friday, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony said that there is a need for 4,000 more nurses countrywide and provisions are being made to recruit nurses from outside of Guyana.

“Another area we have placed emphasis on in the Ministry is the development of our Human Resources. As you know, we have a problem with attrition of nurses and this is not a Guyana problem, it is a global problem,” Minister said on Friday.

He shared that one of the things that the government is aware of is that recruiters are coming into Guyana and actively recruiting healthcare professionals. He said this is something that cannot be stopped. “But one of the things that we have been doing to increase nurses in our system is to train more people,” he added.

Having been faced with the issue of shortages of nurses, the minister related that several measures have been put in place to retain nurses including increasing salaries and training opportunities.

According to the Health Minister, with the three public nursing schools:  GPHC, Linden, and New Amsterdam, approximately 250 nurses are trained annually.

“A registered nurse takes about three years to train. So, we were only able to do between 200 and 250. We have started a programme last year which is a hybrid programme where we have brought in at least 1,100 nurses for training and they have started that training; they have three years to complete,” he explained.

To this, he said that next year the government is looking to train 1000 to 1200 persons. Further, the Health Minister said that the Nursing Assistant Programme has been reviewed and in January 2024, it is hoped that at least 1000 persons will be enrolled into the programme. After a year of training, the ministry would then be able to recruit them.

“Apart from these programmes, we have also been decentralizing some of our programs where we do training in the regions themselves and for these, we have been looking at pharmacy assistance, community health workers, some technicians training, laboratory training, and so forth,” he added.

In the interim, while nurses are being trained locally, Dr. Anthony elaborated that they have expanded their recruitment to Cuba and at least 80 nurses from Cuba came to Guyana this year.

“By early next year, we are expecting another 200 nurses to come in and we are also looking at other countries where we can recruit nurses from and again, this is an ongoing process,” he mentioned. He stated that having recruited nurses from Cuba, they have a three-month crash course they have been doing to learn the English language.

Having done an audit, the minister said it showed that approximately 4,000 nurses are needed in the system, and this they are looking to achieve even before the construction of the various hospitals are completed.

“So, as I said, we do have a shortage and we have to work to mitigate that shortage,” the minister pointed out.

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• Cuban, Director of Nursing Services, Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Leslyn Holder, Robbie Rambarran

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