With the obvious need for more healthcare providers, the Health Ministry on Monday oriented 124 healthcare professionals into a training programme that focuses on clinical and technical skills.
The ministry’s Senior Health Education Officer, Georgel Abrams, said the programme will see this batch of healthcare workers being trained both in theory and practice before they are sent to work at health centres and hospitals all across Guyana to take up positions as x-ray technicians, environmental health assistants, medical laboratory technicians and dental assistants.
“These programmes were designed to prepare allied healthcare providers to support those health professions that are distinct from nursing and medicine.
“The clinical and technical programmes were designed to prepare allied healthcare professions, in addition to skilled clinical and tech healthcare providers,” Abrams said.
She added that the first months of the programme will facilitate core learning before the students move on to specialized training for their various professions.
The Deputy Director of the institution, Chandroutie Persaud, warned the students that the programme will not be easy but assured that with a positive attitude and the support of the institution they will be successful.
“You are here to excel and we at Health Sciences will offer all the support that you need,” Persaud said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, who gave the feature address, encouraged the students to keep learning.
“We don’t want you to be limited to just being an X-ray technician.
“You will come and you can start there but there are other opportunities for you to be trained in CT scans and ultrasound and echo-cardio graphs and so forth.
“You should think seriously about a career trajectory in the area of imaging,” the Health Minister said.
He further said that in this profession there is new information being discovered every day, hence, “you have to keep up to date with knowledge.”
The minister also noted that the attitude of health care workers must be addressed in these training courses. Often times, the junior nurses are first to respond to persons who visit healthcare facilities. For this reason, foul attitude cannot be tolerated, he said.
“We want you to understand that when patients come to us, they are coming in their most vulnerable times. Your attitude can either help to enhance their experience and make them have trust in the health system or you can turn them away and they will have very adverse comments to make.
“We want whatever we are delivering must be the highest quality possible; we are not investing literally billions of dollars to build a world class healthcare system only to be let down by somebody’s foul attitude,” Dr Anthony said.
