KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, March 19, IWN — While this country’s doctors and nurses are “doing OK” in terms of remuneration and increase accessed to training, a problem is arising.
Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said in Bequia on Monday that the local School of Nursing is improving and is offering academic degrees and not just nursing training.
“The only thing I worry about this, if I must say is — and I told the Chief Nursing Officer, I am concerned that what happening in the United Kingdom, when you had some of that happening — some of the nurses who chose to do the degrees rather than simply doing the registered nursing programme, some of the nurses with their degrees, particularly if they do well, they feel that they are too posh to wash and are therefore leaving a number of traditional nursing functions to the nursing assistants.
“So, we will have to watch to see how that goes to see if experiences in other countries are replicated here. But those are challenges which you have to deal with as you make progress,” Gonsalves said at the opening of the health centre in Port Elizabeth.