Nurses attend historical Retreat
…Speakers say migration of nurses threaten quality of health care

By Pauline Waruguru
Nevis Reporter, SKNVibes.com

The Governor General St. Kitts and Nevis, Sir Cuthbert Sebastian, chatting with nurses

The Nurses Retreat was organised by the St. Kitts and Nevis Nurses and Midwives Council under the theme “Empowering Nurses to Deliver Quality Health Care In the 21st Century”.

Deputy Prime Minister Sam Condor said shortage of resources in the region poses major challenges to the nursing profession, but he is optimistic that those challenges would be addressed. He said the Caribbean Heads of State, including individual governments, are responding to the challenges and noted that St. Kitts had pioneered a nursing school and “drop of health care cannot be afforded”.

“The nursing profession must invigorate itself through a combination of factors,” the Minister said. He said nurses could only be remunerated within the available resources and noted that they are currently better paid than the Police and teachers. He called on nurses to be ambitious by pursuing further education, “People are remunerated according to qualifications and performance.” 

Minister Condor pointed out that in certain instances public perception of quality care by nurses was critical: “Adopt a culture of excellence...patients are vulnerable due to their illnesses.” He called on nurses to partner with patients and their families to expand patient care. 

The Deputy Prime Minister also called on national, regional and international nursing councils to network and to be imaginative and innovative to ensure that nurses maintain high quality services.

St. Kitts Health Minister, Hon. Rupert Herbert told the nurses that the Federation came a far way in health gains due to wise investment in that area. He was optimistic that recommendations after the Retreat would be implemented in order to promote health care: “Use this time of reflection wisely. Change is constant...nurses are leaders of change.”

Other issues addressed included causes of breakdown in the nursing profession, factors leading to recruitment problem, low salaries, discrimination, work conditions, lack of job satisfaction, poor leadership and nurses’ care givers.

The Retreat provided a forum for reflection and one-on-one interaction. Also included as part of the Retreat were educational presentations. The key guests and speakers during the opening ceremony were the Governor-General of St. Kitts and Nevis, Sir Cuthbert Sebastian; Deputy Prime Minister Sam Condor; and the Health Minister, Hon. Rupert Herbert; while the feature address was delivered by Dame Delores Gumbs.

“The Caribbean has lost thousands of nurses to Europe and the US.  However, I am of the firm belief that nurses prefer to stay in their country of origin, and will do so if they were treated like other civil servants. Indeed, they will leave but only for advancement in education. I say this because it is the response I frequently get from migrated nurses,” Dame Gumbs said.

Dame Gumbs said statistics in the US showed that there are currently 118,000 vacant nursing positions. She said this shortage was predicted to increase to one million by the year 2010 and “in addition, nursing schools are turning away applicants because of faculty shortages”. ~~Adz:Right~~

While Dame Gumbs is convinced that governments and other stakeholders have a responsibility to remunerate nurses like other professionals in the civil service. She told the nurses to do everything within their means to reinstate the ethics and values that make nursing a noble career.

“Somewhere along, we lost sight of who we are. We forgot our dreams and the excitement we felt when we stepped in our uniforms and walked through the doors of our nursing schools for the first time. Pride, power greed, our achievements, politics and inability to love and care for each other have caused serious breakdowns not only in our workplace, but in our homes and community,” she said.

“What we did not realise is that this was a ministry, a call to serve like that of the church.  To care for the sick, the suffering and dying. God placed into our hands the keys to effectively care for His people and to empower young students to walk in His footsteps and our footsteps, the understanding that we are His hands and His feet doing His will here on earth,” Dame Gumbs noted.

“The hospitals, nursing homes, homes of the sick, the elderly, the orphans, are centres of healing and not mere centers where we spend eight hours and receive a pay check. These are the institutions where God meets us and we become an extension of His healing presence,” she said

She however reminded the participants of the verbal abuses and insults nurses face at work and also some aspects of the conditions under which they perform their duty.

“Is there no justice to these verbal abuses and insults we face on the job? How can one nurse give quality care to 15 patients, will it ever end? You understand that nursing is a call to serve, and so it is not a call to take abuse…it is a time to encourage and to build up.”