The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WITH the country facing a serious nursing shortage amid its third wave of COVID-19, Health Minister Renward Wells says officials are looking to recruit nurses locally as opposed to hiring them from abroad.

Speaking to reporters before yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Mr Wells said staff shortages, specifically at Princess Margaret Hospital, continues to be a major challenge for officials.

At PMH alone, some 49 nurses have left the hospital over the course of the pandemic, some for retirement while others left for working opportunities elsewhere, he said.

“Bed space in the country is not an issue. We have a personnel problem in regards to us being adequately able to completely staff all of the facilities that we have in a COVID environment because you need to ramp up,” Mr Wells said.

“We would’ve lost, I think, probably there were about 49 nurses that would’ve left PMH’s environment, and I think five of them may have retired and the remaining would’ve taken opportunities offered elsewhere.

“In this COVID environment, healthcare personnel were and are still in great demand globally and so The Bahamas, our own people, we are competing to ensure that we’re holding on to them.”

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Wells told reporters officials were hoping to hire nurses from abroad as a means to resolve the current nurse shortage in the country.

At the time, he also said officials would speed up the examination process for student nurses so they could be quickly introduced into the health care system, something that was eventually done and proved effective, according to Mr Wells.

But, as it relates to hiring nurses abroad, Mr Wells said while officials are still considering the matter, they prefer to bring in medical workers locally.

He said: “We are looking at ways to bring in as much of our domestic personnel, nurses as possible, even those ones who have retired to bring them back in the system so they could bring their know-how and their requisite skills to the table to assist.

“You would remember in the second wave, we spoke about potentially bringing in nurses from abroad although we did not pursue it. It’s still a consideration, but right now we’re seeking to deal with our own domestic circumstances as best we can. We’re not afraid to go outside the boundaries, the confines of our nation to bring in persons.

“You know at the height when we really believed the system was on the verge of more catastrophe, we brought in an NGO, Samaritan’s Purse if you remember down at PMH and it just so happens that the week they came in we started having declining numbers and so we had declining numbers up until the first or second week of last year.”

The nurse shortage comes at a time when the country is seeing an uptick of COVID-19 cases and virus-related hospitalisations, along with an increase in coronavirus deaths.

Yesterday, Mr Wells urged healthcare workers and the Bahamian public at large to get vaccinated, noting it is the only way the country can move on from this pandemic.

“My encouragement to the healthcare sector and the Bahamian people is for us to continuously vaccinate because if healthcare workers and the entire healthcare centre is vaccinated we won’t have an even more challenging circumstance for someone who is exposed to COVID and has to step outside the healthcare environment because they were exposed or God forbid, they themselves would have tested positive for COVID working in the environment,” he added.

“And so, we understand and know what ails us. I keep preaching this. This isn’t how it was in the second wave when we didn’t have ‘the cure’ and I want to use it in quotations because a vaccine isn’t a cure, it just ramps up your defence. We have a cure for what ails us. It’s called a vaccine. Go get it and let us open our society and move forward.”

The Bahamas currently has received 86,600 doses of the vaccine, including 20,000 donated by the government of India and 66,000 obtained through the World Health Organisation’s COVAX Facility.

Another 33,600 doses from the COVAX Facility are expected to arrive in the country by the end of the month, according to Mr Wells.

“We are working on sourcing other vaccines for the Bahamian people to give them an opportunity for other vaccines and so, I think you’ll be seeing that very, very soon,” the minister said.

Last month, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis relaxed restrictions for fully vaccinated people, exempting them from travel requirements among other things once they have passed the two-week immunity period. Vaccinated people can also dine indoors at restaurants.

Asked if the government is looking to implement other vaccination perks like removing the requirement of mask wearing for fully vaccinated people, the minister replied: “Well, when the country gets vaccinated and individuals are vaccinated, I think the Bahamian people could see that this government is willing to move in a positive direction for those folks who are responsive in that regard. Look at what we just said in regard to just travel for fully vaccinated persons.

“So, I think we’ve already signalled and intimated what we intend to do and it isn’t just us. It is what the science is saying. It is what other societies are doing because they have moved forward. We see the roadmap. We see the light at the end of the tunnel… our society is open in many ways now, so imagine how much more so as we move forward.”