RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says in­vest­ment in the well-be­ing of nurs­es is es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try’s econ­o­my and health­care sys­tem.

Speak­ing at the In­ter­na­tion­al Nurs­es Day cel­e­bra­tion held at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts yes­ter­day, the health min­is­ter said, “When we in­vest in the well-be­ing and de­vel­op­ment of our nurs­es, we are not on­ly strength­en­ing our health sys­tems, but we are al­so strength­en­ing our na­tion­al econ­o­my.”

He said nurs­es are on the front lines in clin­ics, hos­pi­tals and com­mu­ni­ties. “Nurs­es are cen­tral to the health and re­silience of our peo­ple. They are not on­ly care­givers; they are ed­u­ca­tors, ad­vo­cates, re­searchers and lead­ers,” Bo­doe said.

“Nurs­es are of­ten the first point of con­tact for pa­tients and the thread that con­nects every as­pect of the health­care jour­ney,” he ex­plained. “Their abil­i­ty to pro­vide holis­tic, pa­tient-cen­tred care makes them unique­ly po­si­tioned to ad­dress both the med­ical and emo­tion­al needs of in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies,” he stressed.

The min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to pri­ori­tis­ing the men­tal, phys­i­cal and pro­fes­sion­al well-be­ing of the nurs­ing work­force.

“We recog­nise that by en­sur­ing nurs­es have ac­cess to prop­er train­ing, ad­e­quate re­sources and safe work­ing con­di­tions, we not on­ly pro­tect the qual­i­ty of health­care but al­so dri­ve broad­er eco­nom­ic and so­cial progress,” he said.

Bo­doe said ef­forts are be­ing made to fill hu­man re­source gaps in the pub­lic health sec­tor. He ac­knowl­edged the strain on health sys­tems due to age­ing pop­u­la­tions and ris­ing de­mand for care.

“The role of nurs­es has nev­er been more vi­tal or more de­mand­ing,” he said.

He al­so thanked nurs­es for their con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try.

“Your ded­i­ca­tion, re­silience and hu­man­i­ty in­spire us and strength­en our na­tion,” he said. “Let us con­tin­ue to work hand in hand to up­hold the high stan­dards of care that de­fine our health­care sys­tem and to build a fu­ture where every nurse is val­ued, sup­port­ed and em­pow­ered.”

The health min­is­ter has com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing train­ing for nurs­es as well as re­cruit­ing for­eign nurs­es if need­ed.

His as­sur­ance came af­ter the pres­i­dent of the T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, Idi Stu­art, claimed this coun­try was grap­pling with a sig­nif­i­cant short­age of nurs­es. He said there was a deficit of over 1,000 nurs­es. He em­pha­sised that the short­age was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the mi­gra­tion of nurs­es seek­ing bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties abroad and the lack of suf­fi­cient train­ing pro­grammes to re­plen­ish the work­force.

In­ter­na­tion­al Nurs­es Day is cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on May 12, the birth date of Flo­rence Nightin­gale. This year’s glob­al theme was Our Nurs­es. Our Fu­ture. Car­ing for Nurs­es Strength­ens Economies.