RECENTLY, when the Guyana Nurses Association celebrated its 90th anniversary, the occasion brought to the public’s eye the nursing profession and nurses.  Nurses are so much a part of our normal day-to-day lives that the public takes them for granted. This attitude is ironic since the nursing profession worldwide has been growing in importance with its revolutionary extension into new skills and specialties, and its involvement in the use of new technologies and IT.

It is appropriate at this point to say what nursing and the nursing profession is so that readers may have a more precise concept of it:  “The nursing profession is within the health care sector and is focused on the care of individuals, families and communities so that they may attain, maintain or recover optimal health and quality of life.”

The Minister of Public Health recently identified the main challenges facing the profession in her World Health Day message and in her charge to the General Nursing Council of Guyana (GNCG).  She pointed out that the number of trained nurses in Guyana will have to almost be doubled to satisfy national requirements.  In her own words:
“…We are in dire need of health care providers and skilled persons to deliver vital services and to provide quality and accurate health information to our residents in the communities and the regions.  According to our data, there are 912 Registered Nurses in Guyana (862 from hospitals and 55 from health centres)… to deliver care where people live, there is need for 607 RN’s for the public hospitals and another 50 for the health centres with a greater need for midwives”.
The other challenge the Minister identified was the enhancement of nursing education: …”The Ministry’s primary objective is to advance nursing education and to ensure that a corps of quality and competent nurses is produced”.
The present facilities are unable to produce the number of Registered Nurses needed in Guyana, taking into account the annual loss from emigration.  And the quality of training and education which exist at the moment, though satisfactory, are not as modern as to take in the use of various new machines, specialised training and the progressive use of IT in medicine.

The training and education of the nurses should not be confused with the activities of the General Nursing Council of Guyana (GNCG).  The GNCG defines its activities as …”conducting examinations for registration of nurses, midwives and nursing assistants;  establishing and improving educational standards and practices;  maintaining a professional register;  conducting hearings to decide whether practitioners should be removed from the register because of misconduct or illness;  and prosecuting those who falsely claim to be qualified nurses, midwives or nursing assistants”.

The Ministry realises that training facilities are inadequate and is thus considering building a modern nurses’ college on 30 acres of land it hopes to acquire.  The college will train all tiers of persons in the profession, and will be exchanging lectures and classes with foreign training facilities by the use of IT technology.

Synchronising with the Ministry’s plans and activities, we think a number of positive initiatives could be taken immediately which could improve the nursing profession.

The moral and humanitarian values of nursing should again be featured in the school system and in the media.  In colonial times, beginning with the life and works of Florence Nightingale, children and young people understood that nursing was a vocation and as such better educated middle-class young women were attracted to the profession, raising its general standards.  Disseminating such knowledge of the essence of nursing could help in recruiting.

With some adjustments to the present system and also bringing on board the nurse-training facilities of the private hospitals, the training facilities of the country could be extended and would be able to produce more RN’s.

Male nurses seem to have becoming scarcer.  An effort should be made to recruit more male nurses.  Male nurses complement the larger female segment of the profession.
The newly established nurse-training facility at the University of Guyana should be supported and be well funded by Government, and bilateral and multilateral sources of assistance should be tapped so that the nursing school could quickly develop.

Nurse training at the more advanced levels has moved away from the hospitals and nursing schools to the universities.  Master’s Degrees in nursing are now offered at several well-known universities abroad and many foreign governments as well as universities

themselves, offer scholarships of which qualified Guyanese nurses may take advantage.
Improving the remuneration and conditions of service of nurses should never be lost sight of.