55 years of service, Nurse Lalckecharan urges colleagues to be caring, show empathy for their patients

International Nurses Day, was celebrated on Thursday by the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), where they showed appreciation for the hard working and dedicated nurses who care for the citizens daily. Serving in the profession at the public hospital for 55 years, Noshella Lalckecharan, explained the qualities need to become a successful health care provider.

“You have to really like it. You have to like nursing, you have to like people, and if you don’t like people then it’s no point you coming and do nursing. You have to be a caring person so that when patients come into the hospital, you’re able to interact with them and make them feel as if they’re at home, you have to show them that sort of empathy and you give them what they need,” she explained. Nurse Lalckecharan issued an appeal to persons to join the nursing profession, noting that it is a “good” career path to follow.

Meanwhile, Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, reminded the nurses about the importance of being passionate about their job and creating a friendly environment for patients and their families. “When you came into the profession, I think you came because you really want to serve humanity, and you came because you had empathy and compassion, and you want to help people, and by and large you have to maintain that passion day in and day out. And, it takes a lot sometimes to do that. It’s not only working with patients, but it’s also how you work with the relatives of those patients because people want to know what’s happening with their loved ones, and very often it’s how you interact with people that you can either build them up or you can make them more vulnerable,” Dr. Anthony explained.

Minister Anthony pointed out that government is using every opportunity to provide better training courses and practices for persons looking to pursue a career in nursing. “It’s also important that we look at how we train our nurses, and right now with three public schools with a capacity of probably about 100 nurses per year, we’re not going to be able to train enough nurses for the services that we require,” Minister Anthony assured.

The health minister declared that the ministry is currently exploring ways in which nurses could have blended training; meaning both online and face to face interaction. It was revealed that Nurses’ week is being celebrated under the theme “Nurses, a voice to lead, invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health.”