St Lucia moving speedily to remedy nursing problems
Damian Greaves
by Norman 'Gus' Thomas
Caribbean Net News Senior Regional Correspondent
E-mail: rc@caribbeannetnews.com
Friday, July 15, 2005
CASTRIES, St Lucia: Due to migration brought
on by the poaching of nurses by more developed nations, the nursing profession
in St Lucia is now in "crisis", forcing the country's health authorities to
take urgent steps to deal with the matter. In
addressing the country's Parliament back in April, Minister with
responsibility for Health, Human Services, Gender Relations and Family
Affairs, Damian Greaves, openly admitted that nurse migration has become one
of the urgent areas impeding quality health delivery and, as a result,
officials are now looking at the possibility of doubling the number
of nurses being trained, hoping this will solve the problem.
Officials told Caribbean Net News that there are also plans to offer
several special incentives for professionals, to prevent them from giving in
to the attractive offers dangled before their eyes by rich countries such as
Canada, the USA and others. A number of
nurses who have migrated told Caribbean Net News that poor working
conditions, low wages, slow promotion and lack of respect (especially among
politicians) are among the mains reasons why they sought "greener pastures".
Authorities in St. Lucia are keen on doing
everything to build and maintain a professional health service, as the
situation in the country has been changing rapidly due to the rise in crime.
"Right now we are seeing a lot of patients… gunshot wounds, stab wounds… we
are seeing a lot of abortions," nursing director, Henrietta Vaval, was quoted
by the media as saying.
One doctor at Victoria Hospital told
Caribbean Net News that the situation has become even more difficult due
to the problems caused by HIV/AIDS and the special needs of people living with
the disease. He said that government has been
forced to recall a number of retired nurses to assist and the Dr. Kenny
Anthony Administration is said to be seriously considering importing trained
nurses from other developing countries. A
recent damning report by the Caribbean Commission of Human Development (CCHD)
revealed that over a quarter million Caribbean people will die as a result of
HIV/AIDS if currents trends are not checked.
Experts told Caribbean Net News that
children will account for 3% of the new HIV/AIDS cases in the region over the
next five years. The report also had some not
so pleasant things to say about health services in the region, pointing out
that in today's computerised world with its vast improvement in information
technology, enough attention has not been paid to the collection of important
data from "health and related sectors that allow adequate forecasting and
planning".
Information systems are fragmented and,
"believe it or not", only one country has systematic collection of social data
regular household surveys.
Back...
Most popular
articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed
Printable
version
| 
