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Guyana increasing oil production annually yet unable to pay nurses liable wage to combat shortage – Dr. Cummings
Dr. Karen Cummings, APNU Parliamentarian
Kaieteur News – Former Health Minister Dr. Karen Cummings on Thursday raised concerns over the mass exodus of health workers owing to a failure by Government to pay livable wages.
Dr. Cummings, Member of Parliament (MP) for the A Partnership for National Unity party noted that with the ramping up of oil production, the Government of Guyana should be able to collect more revenues to pay nurses and other public servants livable wages and put a stop to the loss of skilled workers from the public sector. In her budget debates presentation on Thursday, Dr. Cummings called on Government to urgently provide redress to the issue while alluding to the shortage of nurses at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
The MP noted that the figure of nurses that have resigned from the institution, which is the nation’s leading public health facility, is cause for alarm. Since January last year; more than 300 nurses have resigned from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
As such, she noted: “the country’s primary medical institution has been hard-hit by a high number of resignations in recent years and according to well-placed sources at the GPHC, at the end of 2022, close to 215 nurses had resigned from the hospital. By the end of August last year, more than 100 nurses had tendered their resignations from the GPHC, another source noted.
Dr. Cummings noted that some 1200 nurses should be manning the hospital since it is a 450-bed facility; however, the current staff roster is far below that figure grossly impacting the ratio of nurses manning the beds at the hospital.
“The honourable member, Dr. Ashni Singh, noted on page 94, three FPSOs in the Stabroek Block will realise 550,000 barrels per day in 2024 with an expected ramp up to over 600,000 barrels per day in the latter part of this year.” “Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is that there is adequate fiscal space to pay nurses and healthcare workers, there is enough fiscal space to address in a tangible way the rising cost of living, and there is no lack of money to give a livable wage to public servants, pensioners, the Guyanese on public assistance and the differently abled…” she added.
The Opposition Parliamentarian suggested that Guyanese nurses are being easily recruited overseas because they are offered more attractive salaries than what they are paid locally.
In response to Cummings, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony noted that additional Cuban nurses are being recruited as the government expands local training programmes. Dr. Cummings, however, said hiring foreign nurses to quell the problem is not acceptable. She also said postgraduate training for nurses “will not cut it.” According to her, nurses and other healthcare workers must be better paid.
To this, Dr. Anthony highlighted those nurses’ salaries, under the APNU+AFC government from 2015 to 2020, saw their salaries increase by about 33%. And he noted that since 2020, when the PPP/C returned to office, salaries have increased by about 71%.
Further, Dr. Anthony said this nursing issue is not one that Guyana alone is grappling with. “Migration of nurses is a global phenomenon but what is important is what we do,” he said. The Health Minister posited that the government is responding to this issue by training far more nurses now than before and those healthcare workers will be employed as soon as they complete their studies. Dr. Anthony defended the mammoth $129.8 billion allocation for the health sector in the $1.14 trillion 2024 budget.
A huge chunk of those funds will be spent on building 12 new hospitals across the country and upgrading several other facilities.
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