GPHC short of 7oo nurses -CEO

Dec 31, 2024 News

Kaieteur News- The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is currently functioning with a deficit of 700 nurses.

The figure represents more than 55 per cent of the staff complement of nurses needed for the institution to operate optimally. This was revealed during an end-of year press conference hosted at the GPHC Resource Centre on Monday. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the hospital, Robbie Rambarran explained that the hospital has been actively working to fill the employment gaps.

“The Nurses administration has been working continuously with key stakeholders to ensure capacity building to facilitate all the needs for nursing care and specialty care,” the CEO said as he sought to assure that the shortage of nurses is not just a Guyana issue but a global one.

Chief Executive Officer of GPHC, Robbie Rambarran.

“The nurses’ shortage is everywhere. It is not an isolated issue to Guyana; it’s a global issue. There are nurses that use to go for example from Nigeria to Fiji or Dubai…”

Rambarran noted that the discussion for ramping up the staff complement of nurses continues to centre on importing overseas trained personnel. “The government has been looking at the various avenues and different countries from how we can get nurses…. There have been some discussions about bringing nurses from the Philippines,” he revealed.

At present, the CEO noted that the government has started accepting nurses from Cuba to assist with the declining complement of nurses. He said, “we had a deficit of about 55 per cent in our direct nursing care, that is maybe about 700, this is to take industry standard…The Cuban nurses have been helpful in this regard…The only challenge is the language barrier but they usually go through a course called English is my second language.”

Director of Nursing Services, Leslyn Holder, said while gaps exist in patient care, daily staffing of various wards and units, efforts are being made to lessen any unnecessary workload of those nurses on a daily basis. She added, “That is why support is needed; additional support is needed during the patient[’s] hospital stay because [of] our goals for optimum healthcare or patient care.”

Having been faced with the issue of shortages of nurses, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, had announced that several measures have been put in place to retain nurses, including increasing salaries and training opportunities. “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 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.

(GPHC short of 7oo nurses -CEO )

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capacity, CEO, deficiency, GPHC, Nurses

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