The Government is aggressively recruiting health workers from around the world to meet the demand for the local Health Sector, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has stated.
In an interview with reporters on Monday, the Vice President admitted that the Government is “struggling” to grapple with the shortage of healthcare workers in the country, even as it continues to build more hospitals and other health facilities.
“We are struggling to complete the hospitals, find staff now. We are recruiting aggressively so that all the new hospitals we are building can get the highest level of service. We don’t have enough people in Guyana, enough staff and we are recruiting from around the world…until we can train our own people, so that they can adequately staff these [hospitals],” the Vice President told reporters.
The Government has long admitted that Guyana lacks the human resource capacity to effectively man hospitals and other health institutions in the country.
Last December, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the Twin Island Republic was in discussion with the Guyanese Government to supply doctors, starting with a batch of 50.
It is unclear whether those doctors have started to arrive in Guyana, but since then the Cuban Medical Mission, comprising doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, has exited Guyana after the two sides failed to agree to a new Medical Cooperation Agreement. The Government is not contracting Cuban doctors and nurses directly.
Even as it recruits health workers from across the world, the Ministry of Health said it is working with a number of its partners, including the Pan American Health Organization, to develop a staffing plan to address its human resources needs.
The plan includes the decentralization of training programmes for health professionals including nurses and the continued implementation of a hybrid training programme which allows nursing students to do their theoretical studies online and their practical sessions at simulation centres in nine of the 10 Administrative Regions.
The training is being conducted by the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Since 2020, scores of nurses have been trained, but the gap remains. Over the years, Guyanese nurses have been migrating for better paying jobs in the Caribbean and Europe.
The Government’s dual approach of immediate recruitment and long-term capacity building reflects the urgency of addressing healthcare staffing shortages while investing in domestic training programmes to reduce future dependency on foreign workers.
