Jamaica has a nursing shortage not unlike many of its counterparts in the region and to this end, the island’s Ministry of Health will be looking at ways to facilitate the movement of nurses throughout the Caribbean.
Jamaica’s minister of health Dr Fenton Ferguson said that he has already paved the way for discourse on the matter.
Ferguson, was addressing the opening ceremony of the 41st Annual General Meeting of the Regional Nursing Body in Kingston recently. He said that while there was a shortage in some areas of Jamaica that there was a commensurate oversupply of nurses on other territories in various areas of nursing.
“We have opened discussions aimed at tapping into this pool of available nursing resources and have a situation where there can be a seamless movement of the talent, between territories, that it will fulfil identified needs, and address the imbalance,” he stated while emphasizing that his view for Jamaica’s healthcare was that Jamaica became a healthcare hub in the Caribbean and Americas.
“I have directed that we limit looking extra-regionally for nurses at this time, except for those instances when we need specialist skills that are not available locally, Even though the private sector is responding, we still have some issues. We are of the view that at this time, we must look internally, to ensure that those persons who are unemployed… we must create opportunities for them,” he said.
Interestingly the minister still stated that the government does not have the capacity to absorb the number of nurses that graduate from various institutions each year.
Meanwhile, Chair of the Regional Nursing Body, Elnora Warner, explained that the body was established to set and maintain standards of nursing education and practice in member territories, through regional cooperation, with the expressed purpose to raise the standard of nursing service to the people of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
