The Government of Guyana intends to start examining ways to contain the exodus of trained and qualified nurses from Guyana.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Committee of Supply this morning, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony revealed that there is active recruitment of Guyanese nurses from foreign countries particularly the United Kingdom.
He said while the problem has persisted for several years, the recruitment is hurting the local healthcare system as nurses leave to seek better pay and an improved way of life.
The Minister said the Government plans to find ways to slow down the exodus of nurses.
“There is active recruitment of nurses from Guyana and we have been losing nurses because of this recruitment so we are looking at various ways to slow that down. I don’t think that we might be able to ever stop it but we have to slow it down and then be able to produce more nurses for the facilities and so forth,” Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony told the Committee of Supply today.
The Minister said there are a number of measures including training more nurses and the need to address the bigger problem of retention that will have to be addressed.
“That is to compete with the salaries that are being paid in the UK, that’s a very tall order and what is happening right now is that when a nurse is offered a job lets say to go to the UK that the offer is not only for the nurse to go the UK but for the entire family to accompany the nurse and so these are the dynamics that we have,” Dr. Anthony said.
He admitted, however, that in order for nurses to be assured of upward mobility in Guyana, they must first complete the midwifery training even if they have no interest in the field. Dr. Anthony said it is a situation that the government will be looking to change.
“There are other none monetary incentives that we can put in place and we are actively considering some of those incentives,” the Minister has assured.
The Minister said there is currently a shortage of nurses across the system except for the Linden Hospital complex.
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