-1,000 already enrolled

WITH the need to improve the human resource capacity of Guyana’s healthcare sector, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, on Friday announced that a hybrid programme for the training of nurses is expected to be rolled out in the next two weeks.

The Health Minister made this revelation during the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation’s (GPHC) International Nurses Day appreciation brunch.

During his address, Dr Anthony noted that the government has recognised that there is an urgent need to train a lot more persons in the field as there is rapid expansion taking place in the country’s health sector.

As such, he noted that with the three nursing schools that are currently facilitating the registered nursing programme, only about 250 persons can be trained every three years.

However, he noted that when a human resource assessment was done as it relates to how many persons will be needed moving forward, it was revealed that quite a lot more persons will be required.

“One of the things we decided is we have to scale up the training of our nurses,” the he said.

He added that over the last year, the World Health Organisation collaborating centre for Brazil was working with the ministry’s training division and they have reformatted the curriculum and as a result, this updated curriculum will be launched soon.

This hybrid programme will be launched in partnership with the global online learning platform, Coursera, and will see the theoretical content for the registered nursing programme being made available online.

For the practical components of the programme, he added that a number of simulation centres will be built out to facilitate that.

“So, in another maybe two weeks from now we will be launching this programme and we already have more than 1,000 persons enrolled in this programme,” Dr Anthony said.

He added that they hope to add another 1,000 persons to the programme the following year.

Further, he remarked that as they look to expand the nursing workforce of the country, all persons who successfully complete the programme will be guaranteed a job upon completion.

In this year’s budget, the government had set aside some $620 million for the provision of nursing schools which is expected to cater for the construction of a training facility at Anna Regina and the retrofitting of existing facilities.

Several hospitals are currently under construction across the country which now increases the need for skilled medical personnel.