More than 200 extra nurses employed in Region Ten

REGION TEN HAS 200 ODD MORE NURSES than the health sector there needs, Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC), Rudy Small disclosed.
However, those health sector workers are employed by the Health Ministry and not the LHC,
meaning that CEO Small cannot determine whether they remain in the Upper Demerara/Berbice
Administrative Region or posted somewhere else.
“The nurses don’t belong to me; they are not Linden Hospital Complex nurses; they are the
Ministry of Health nurses; they are employed by the Ministry of Health so the Ministry has a
right to send them anywhere that they want to send them. I know a lot of them have their
families,” Small explained to counter rumours circulating in the bauxite-mining town of Linden.
The overstaffing of the nursing sector in the predominantly mining community, came into
sharper focus recently because of the myriad challenges produced by the COVID-19 pandemic
which has so far killed close to 190 Guyanese and more than two million persons worldwide.
The David Granger administration converted the former Ocean View International Hotel at
Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, into a multi-million-dollar facility to treat infectious disease
patients. There is a special Intensive Care Unit (ICU) there to care for critical COVID-19
patients and it became operational late last year, according to public pronouncements made by
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony.
While the facility has taken lots of pressure off the country’s apex referral health facility, the
Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) allowing physicians to restart undertaking
some specific surgeries, it has not resolved the dilemma of staff shortage at the five levels of the
health sector countrywide.
More staff are also needed to fill vacancies in the 214 health posts; beef up the 136 polyclinics
and health centers; complement specialists at the 21 district or community hospitals and brace
the nation’s five Regional Hospitals and Diagnostic Centers.

The government has come up with attractive incentives to help lure 22 nurses away from the
Region Ten overflow to work at the new infectious facility. So far, 11 have agreed to move
voluntarily, from Upper Demerara/Berbice to Demerara/Mahaica (Region Four).
The Health Ministry is contemplating transferring the excess staff from Region to boost the
strength of the sector nation-wide.
“On any given night…sometimes you have 15 nurses for five patients and the patients, yet they
complain that when they call the nurses, they are not taking care of them properly. So, given that
backdrop I have the excess number of nurses,” Small, a North American-trained professional
nurse, said.
At LHC, “we have 4 or 5 wards, but on any given night and on average we have about 5-8
patients (and the) nursing staff is between 10 to 15,” the CEO disclosed.
Small has been ruffling a few feathers with some of his decisions, but he remains committed to
the task of improving healthcare for the almost 40,000 residents.
“I intend to make this hospital one of the best regional hospitals in Guyana and I am
determined t:o achieve that objective,” the CEO Small reiterated.