-will be placed at existing, new health facilities

SOME 764 persons on Monday graduated from the first hybrid nurses training programme here as Nursing Assistants and were hailed as the largest batch of students. It is expected that they will significantly boost the capacity of Guyana’s public healthcare sector.

The graduates hailing from all ten administrative regions took their oath on Tuesday at a graduation ceremony which was held at the National Cultural Centre.

Delivering an address at the ceremony, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony noted that the hybrid programme is an innovative one that moved away from the traditional way of training nurses but ensures that more persons can be part of the programme.

With the three existing nursing schools in Linden, New Amsterdam and in Georgetown, Dr Anthony noted that the combined intake in any given year would be no more than 200 persons.

“But given this expansion that we have embarked on, this obviously would not have been adequate, because think about it, right now, we have been working on developing 12 new hospitals, six of which we are planning to open over the next couple of months,” he said.

Against this backdrop, he stated that they had to come up with an innovative way to train people while also maintaining the same quality of training.

With several new facilities on the cards, Minister Anthony stated that health authorities have worked with partner Mount Sinai on establishing the ideal staffing structure for each of these hospitals.

“This is a structure we have thought about. We have worked with our partners to make sure that we have the ideal numbers, and we are recruiting, we are training, and we want to retain people to serve in these functions,” the minister disclosed.

Added to this, Dr Anthony speaking directly to the 764 graduates stated that he wishes to see them also look at moving ahead in their healthcare careers.

He said that the government is creating tracks for nurses to also enter specialisations and in so doing are making courses available to them.

Meanwhile, the health minister stated that in keeping with the commitment that President Dr Irfaan Ali has made, all graduates will be given jobs in the public health system.

He affirmed, “So every one of you will have a job with us. So, depending on which region, we will be putting you to work at these different facilities, but most of you, I can say will probably go to the new hospitals that we’re building.”

Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of Health Sciences Education, Chandroutie Persaud-Bahdaur while providing an overview of the programme, disclosed that it was redesigned to be delivered using a hybrid style.

This entailed the combination of online theory which was delivered through the Coursera platform with in-person practical training and hospital rotations.
While the nursing assistant programme was reduced from 18 months to 12 months, the practical hours in skills labs and clinical settings were unchanged thus ensuring flexibility for students.

With this, students were able to learn in their respective regions as practical sessions were carried out at the various simulation centres across the country.

Throughout the programme, Persaud-Bahdaur mentioned that students were able to undergo clinical rounds at both public and private hospitals in Guyana.

Giving a breakdown of the numbers, the deputy director disclosed that 1,029 applications were received and after a thorough screening process 911 students enrolled; however, only 875 commenced studies.

With 764 persons completing the programme, she remarked that this shows an 87 per cent completion rate.