-Contributed
Immediate Past President of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, Iris Wilson, right, in discussion with newly elected President Valda Lawrence Campbell yesterday, during the 34th Island Conference of the Nurses Association of Jamaica held at Starfish Hotel in Trelawny. The four-day conference ends this afternoon.
Erica James-King, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE NURSES Association of Jamaica (NAJ) is lobbying for changes to the regulations governing the renewal of licences for nurses islandwide.
In order to practice in the profession, each nurse must have his or her licence renewed biannually, and the regulation which the NAJ finds objectionable stipulates that nurses must do 60 hours of continuing education before they can have their licences renewed.
The NAJ is beefing up its resistance to that criterion for re-licensing and is lobbying the Nursing Council of Jamaica to have it altered.
According to Valda Lawrence Campbell, newly elected president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, the overwhelming view among members of her profession is that the requirement of 60 hours of continuing education was too excessive in light of the heavy job demands of nurses which many times leave them with minimum time to access training programmes.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE HOURS
"From the discussions that we have had, even yesterday, the nurses have stated their concerns about the hours," Mrs. Lawrence Campbell told The Sunday Gleaner during the 34th Island Conference of the NAJ, which is in progress at Starfish Trelawny Hotel.
"So we are working with the [Nursing] Council and we will continue to work with the Council, to see if there can be some reduction in the hours required for continuing education."
The new regulation was instituted in January 2002, and nurses are due to be screened in December of this year for renewal of their licences.
Among the bugbears affecting the island's approximately 1,500 registered nurses in the public health sector, are the slow rate of staff appointments, a chronic staff shortage and certain glitches associated with the decentralisation of the health sector three years ago.
Drawing attention to her association's disappointment with the sluggish rate of staff appointments, Immediate Past President Iris Wilson who piloted the NAJ for three years until she demitted office last week, bemoaned, "We have persons who have been acting in clear vacancies for quite a few years now and in spite of the lobbying we still have these nurses waiting for these positions."
Against the background of the shortage of nurses the NAJ is questioning what it said was the Government's foot-dragging on the matter of staff appointments.
HEIGHTENED CONFUSION
To complicate matters, since the health sector was decentralised into four health regions the North East, Southern, South East and Western there has been heightened confusion by scores of nurses as to their employment status. "Some of them are not even sure whether they are to continue on secondment which we are doing now, or be directly employed to the region. They just don't know what to do, because they are not sure what is happening," Ms. Wilson said.
One of the things that does not sit well with those in the nursing profession is the fact that most of the persons in administrative positions in the four health regions are non-health practitioners and the NAJ is contending that many times those persons tend to interpret matters relating to the welfare of nurses, based on what happens in the private sector. The NAJ is also charging that each health region interprets aspects of the health reform policy in different ways and this is having a negative effect on nurses and other health professionals.
The issues came to the fore during the four-day Island Conference of the NAJ which comes to a close this afternoon with a church service at Starfish Trelawny.
The new president, Valda Lawrence Campbell and the new executive were scheduled to be sworn into office at a banquet and installation ceremony at the hotel last night.
The 34th Island Conference implored nurses to provide social and psychological support for persons infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The conference was held under the theme 'Nurses always there for families: Fighting AIDS, stigma, caring for all'.
