MORE NURSES WANTED!!

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PERMANENT SECRETARY (PS) MR. MALCOM WATKIN
ADMITTED TO A SHORTAGE OF NURSES IN THE CRITICAL HEALTH SECTOR.
In key areas, the need is dire, according to research done by www.aroundtheregions.com.
According to available figures, only 68 percent of number of registered nurses needed are
currently employed.
The figure is worse for Registered Midwives and Nursing Assistants. In both fields, they have
barely over half the required amount: 52 percent of the required Registered Midwives and 53
percent of the number of Nursing Assistants needed.
Addressing a recent graduation ceremony for25 Nursing Tutors at Duke Lodge in the capital,
Watkins made this admission: “As I speak our COVID hospital is increasing with a number of
cases and in doing so we were short on nurses to support that operation even before that increase.
And as we speak, there are in need of nurses to help the doctors at that hospital to increase the
care of the COVID patients there.”
Operating with this short-handedness means nurses are either massively overworked, tired and
prone to making errors, or hospitalised patients are deprived of proper care. Tutors must not be
fazed by these challenges, Watkins proffered.
“We will encounter difficulties as we are now on the way, but please remember that your role in
healthcare is paramount. You should not allow anything to prevent you from doing so as we will
always have situations where there are difficult nurses or some nurses are not performing the

way that they should. I strongly believe that most of the nurses in Guyana have become nurses
because they have a commitment for healthcare and the work that they do, and we must look at
that goal as a collective. In Guyana will require nurses providing a service that they were trained
to do.”
PS Watkins lauded the benefits of the tutoring for nurses in the local healthcare system still
facing daunting challenges.
“In these crises in any country you are required a foundation of knowledge and skill set in order
to mediate these problems that we have. Without programmes such as this Nursing educators
programme and as the CMO mentioned to be tutors is your ability to create what you were called
to multiplying effects among your profession and help other nurses to become as talented and
skillful as you are. It is the only sure capacity that you can build in a health care system can
withstand the shocks of a pandemic that we are in right now.”
Despite the myriad challenges, Nursing Tutors must nevertheless provide the best healthcare for
Guyanese.
“Everything else between that and what exists we can solve as a group. So, I thank those of you
who are at work and are still taking care of your fellow citizens and working with us to help
solve problems as we go forward,” Watkins told them.
“We are still partners, and we will always be partners in this process and there will be more
difficulties that we will face and whatever difficulties we face now we will also overcome them
together. Stay true to the cause of health care in Guyana,” Watkins counselled.