THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE CHALLENGES that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller faces are immense and require sizeable resources and skills that, at present, Jamaica seems unable to harness.
Nonetheless, the brewing crisis in the health care sector is one that our nation can conceivably manage. Indeed, one cannot disagree with Edith Allwood-Anderson that the Prime Minister, as well as key officials in the Ministry of Health, must proactively engage with the Nurses' Association of Jamaica (NAJ).
POACHING OF NURSES
It is no secret that larger countries are having considerable success poaching our nurses, and the recent developments in CARICOM suggest that regional integration has the potential to exacerbate these tendencies, whereby key personnel will emigrate from poorer to richer islands.
The health care sector is too critical for the workers' concerns to be taken lightly. The NAJ has patiently voiced their apprehension and we are currently faced with a disturbing situation.
It has been reported that about 50 health care professionals leave the island each month in search of more promising employment opportunities elsewhere; this is not sustainable.
There is already a high risk of burnout for individuals working in such a high-stress profession, and as one nurse reported, the present poor nurse-to-patient ratio undeniably compromises the quality of treatment.
It would be difficult, if not unfeasible, for Jamaica to match the remuneration that more affluent countries like the United States and United Kingdom can offer to health care professionals.
However, the Government cannot sit idly by and ignore the problems caused by the ongoing brain drain.
No reasonable person can expect nurses to be content with stagnant wages when potentially more lucrative compensation is there to lure them abroad.
EVEN A TEMPORARY AGREEMENT
Casting the burden on the Prime Minister for the ongoing debacle is a bit unreasonable.
However, the Ministry of Health, ex cathedra, should have been intimately aware of the problems and ought to have devised and advanced sustainable solutions.
Irrespective of this, the Prime Minister can help Jamaicans as well as her own ambitions at election time by respectfully reaching out to the NAJ and finding at least a temporary agreement, based on the mutual understanding that a timetable for negotiations toward a more comprehensive solution is in place.
The problems facing Jamaica are so great that we have no time to waste. We must protect the future of Jamaican health care by compensating nurses with the wages more worthy of their professional contributions and that are reasonable enough to attract a suitable pool of potential health care workers in the years to come.
I am, etc.,
DAVID SMIKLE
dksmik@wm.edu
Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Washington D.C.
Via Go-Jamaica
