Guyana mulls hiring foreign nurses

Guyana is considering the hiring of foreign nurses to man the several hospitals that are under construction, even as hundreds of local nurses continue to migrate mainly to the United Kingdom (UK), a top government official said Wednesday.

“Soon we may have to bring in nurses to work in the country- because, once those hospitals are completed and most of them would be completed by the end of this year or next year- then we have to have staff so we are enhancing training in the area and we’d have to recruit people from abroad to staff the hospitals ,” Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told a discussion during the Guyana Energy Conference being held at the Marriott Hotel.

Guyana is constructing seven new hospitals.

He said the New York-based Mount Sinai Health System would be assisting Guyana with improving management because “this has been a problem here.”

Sister Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member state, Barbados, has been hiring nurses from Ghana.

The Guyana government has in the past said it would ramp up the training of more nurses locally to help cushion the impact of the migration of large numbers of Guyanese nurses mainly to the UK.