$34M a year to have foreign nurses in T&T.
By ANDRE BAGOO (Newsday).
MINISTER of Health Dr Fuad Khan yesterday said it cost $34 million to staff hospitals with foreign nurses last year. Speaking during debate of legislation to reform the nursing profession, Khan said the Nurses and Midwives Registration (Amendment) Bill 2014 would potentially increase the number of nurses available on hospital wards, so much so that citizens could expect State medical care at health facilities to be available 24/7.
The legislation proposes to remove a mandatory examination which all nurses must sit in order to practice and replace it with a system of the granting of provisional certificates. The move would mean that graduates with nursing degrees or diplomas would be able to start working as nurses immediately, pending further qualification.
Khan said it cost $34 million to “inject” 300 foreign nurses into the system from Cuba, the Phillipines, St Vincent and the Grenadines and other countries. He said there is a tremendous shortage of nurses not only locally but internationally.
“The health sector is now facing a crisis and there is an incredible shortage of nursing staff,” the Minister of Health said. “There continues to be a severe shortage of nurses. This continues to be a perennial problem.”
He said the migration of nurses continues even to date. “Trinidad and Tobago is left with no option but to employ foreign labour to supply the local market. This is primarily due to the migration of nurses,” he said. “Even today, nurses continue to migrate to developed countries that are in a better position to employ them.”
Of the legislative proposals, Khan said the Nursing Council has been consulted and, “we have come to an agreement that the Nursing Act needs to be changed. These proposals will have a far- reaching effect on the nursing profession.”
Khan said the requirement of having to pass a examination was “a serious deterrent to attracting students” into the profession. He said the current legislation was designed for conditions in the 1950 s and is “significantly outdated”. The bill proposes to streamline the Nursing Council. Also, the definition of midwives will be amended to allow male midwives.
“This level of discrimination is no longer practiced today,” Khan said. He said nursing students have in the past often complained over the nursing examination.
The minister said failing one component of the exam could, in some circumstances, result in such students having to restart their entire qualification process (between three to four years). He said the examination has a high failure rate (75 percent).
The Minister of Health said there was a large pool of Trinidadian nurses now practising abroad who wanted to work here but who are deterred by the examination requirement. However, Opposition PNM Diego Martin Central MP Dr Amery Browne argued the legislation would simply serve to lower nursing standards.
He called for the bill to be withdrawn, saying it was flawed and amounted to a deferral to the laws and regulations (in relating to nursing criteria) of the foreign countries. He also said there was inadequate consultation.
“We should be talking about raising standards,” he said. “We are going to lower standards. This bill is not fit or ready as yet. It must be withdrawn and proper consultation should take place. It has not been properly considered by those it affects the most,” Browne said.
