THE importance of a high-quality nursing service in the health care system cannot be over emphasised as this is vital to the provision of an efficient and effective delivery of health care.
Regarded as a noble profession because of its humanitarian nature, nursing is a profession which requires discipline, great communication skills, dedication, patience, sacrifice, unique skills and a love for humanity. Therefore, it is a profession for specially cut out persons who simply love what they are doing and are not motivated by materialistic needs and intentions. Such persons are rewarded with the satisfaction and joy of helping their fellow human beings. That is not to say  that the material needs of nurses are not important, but it cannot be the overarching motivating factor.
One of the difficulties which limits the effectiveness and efficiency of health care systems is that in many instances there are people in the nursing profession, as there are  in  many other professions, because of their need for  a job. Unfortunately, these are the same people who are motivated by materialistic motives and therefore they do not display the right attitude which results in a poor quality of service.
In many jurisdictions there is a high level of nursing staff turnover due to migration and other factors. Consequently, many health care systems are forced to accept such persons and keep them in the profession.
Nevertheless, if these persons are given the requisite training they may be brought around to an acceptable standard and that is why continuous training of nurses is an imperative. And this is not only about changing attitudes but also about  keeping nurses abreast with the innovations and changes in medical science, because in today’s world, technological advances are many and fast and this is impacting on all fields of human endeavour.
In this regard, it is good to see our Ministry of Health  placing tremendous emphasis on training of nurses. Of course this will not result in overnight improvement but rather the benefits will be derived in the long term.
Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy alluded to this at the opening of a recent nurses’ training programme
“In taking up any challenge, much time and energy is needed and it doesn’t happen overnight; a lot of work will have to be done to complete any task successfully,” Dr. Ramsammy said.
He added: “Around the world, a survey shows that in most developing countries, the figures of nurses to patients is three and a half to five, while in Guyana, there are 12 nurses to 14 patients, which is exceptional for a developing country.”

Even though there is a high ratio of nurses to patients in Guyana, training programmes will always be initiated so as to have our health care competencies improving, he said.

He noted that often health workers are incapable of dealing with certain cases, and this is mainly because they are not working to their level of production.

“What we should do is qualify ourselves better so we can tackle anything that comes our way and deal with it efficiently,” Ramsammy said.
The minister is correct; training must be continuous as there will always be room for improvement and any health care system worth its salt will strive towards this and our Health Ministry is strongly committed to this path as it has been conducting numerous training programmes for our nurses including specialist ones. But because of the rundown state of our public health care system under a previous government and despite the best efforts, we still have a long way to go. What is encouraging is the fact that we are making steady progress in having better trained nurses and a better public health care system.