http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Nursing_Council_defends_exam_-161394985.htmlNursing Council defends exam
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Story Created: Jul 4, 2012 at 11:58 PM ECT
Story Updated: Jul 4, 2012 at 11:58 PM ECT
The Nursing Council of Trinidad and Tobago (NCTT) yesterday defended the need for a Council-level licensing for graduating nurses.
In what has now become a public war-of-words between the two, Council members Russel Salcedo and David Murphy yesterday took Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan to task for his plans to amend the Nursing and Midwives Act without consultation.
The Council also denied having any previous discussions with Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan and dismissed his quotation of the 40 per cent failure rate for nurses sitting the Council licence exam.
"Unlike if I am at a factory and a tin goes bad I could dump it, we cannot afford to make mistakes and in order to ensure that we do not make mistakes, we must have some method of assessing the individuals competency and aptitude to be a nurse," Salcedo said.
"Any mistake that a nurse makes is either harm to a client or death and that is a critical factor," he added.
Salcedo said the Minister's quotation of the failure rate was also incorrect and instead said they have documents that show a fail-out rate of three to four per cent.
A fail-out rate is the nurses failure of all three chances to pass the Council's licensing exam within a five-year period.
"The Minister made reference to the percentages and some figures were quoted. In 2008, we had a pass rate of 66 per cent, in 2009 we had a pass rate of 89 per cent, in 2010 we had 62 per cent and in 2011 we had 64 per cent," he said.
He said while there were many institutions preparing nurses, they taught a different curriculum.
"The fail-out rate is three to four per cent and when we look at the number of nurses, there's quite a large number passing the system," he said.
"Nurses are being successful, but not being employed," he said.
He asked Khan to explain why there was a shortage, when nurses have passed the licensing exam a year ago and still remain unplaced in public hospitals.
He said that while locally trained and licensed nurses remain unplaced, nurses under a "Government to Government" exchange programme, like Cuba, St Kitts and Nevis, were placed immediately.
In response to those statements though, Khan said in a telephone interview he in fact did meet with the Council when he first assumed office.
Khan said the Council's licensing exam was done to ensure reciprocity of the nurses throughout the Commonwealth.
"For nurses to migrate, they have to have that licence," Khan said, adding that it was that reciprocity that added to the large amount of vacancies in the local health care system.
Khan though said he was not giving up the fight to have the five amendments passed as the "archaic" Council systems needed to change and "adapt to new technology".
He said in the absence of the licence, student nurses would still have to attend schools accredited by the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago.
"I am ready for the fight," Khan said.
—Renuka Singh