Narace: More Cuban health workers coming

Narace: More Cuban health workers coming
Aabida Allaham
Tuesday, February 2nd 2010

ANOTHER batch of Cuban healthcare professionals have signed on to work
with the Ministry of Health because there are still not enough locals to
fill the gaps, Health Minister Jerry Narace said yesterday.

'We have trained 1,720 ... we are probably up to about 1,700 doctors. I
think the number of doctors we want to get to are 2,000-odd, while the
number of nurses we want to get to is substantially more than we have
right now. But I don't have the exact figure at hand, but what we are
doing is training our people,' Narace said during an orientation
programme at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Port of Spain.

The 35 foreign medics were officially welcomed at the event. They are
the third batch of foreign health professionals to join the public
health sector since Government approved the recruitment of 450 foreign
nurses and 119 specialist medical officers on contract last year.

'Our first batch of foreign medical professionals was oriented in August
2009. At that time, we welcomed 14 Cuban doctors, comprising of nine
specialist medical officers, and five primary care physicians, as well
as 21 nurses employed on two-year contracts. Then in October 2009, we
welcomed our second batch of foreign health professionals, which
comprised 17 doctors and 28 nurses from Cuba, as well as 13 nurses from
St Vincent and the Grenadines,' Narace said.

Out of the 35 healthcare professionals, the ministry will allocate the
specialised nurses in the group to the regional health authorities
according to the need, while community care nurses will be stationed at
the South West and North West RHAs, Narace said.

As for the language-barrier concern many people have, Narace said
whenever the ministry recruits foreign healthcare personnel, it always
ensures the applicants possess both the professional competencies and
the language competencies as prerequisites for selection.

He said, despite this, foreign health professionals are still required
to attend an intensive English language training course at the Centre
for Language Learning at the University of the West Indies in St
Augustine, which is aimed at building their existing language strengths
and addressing any improvement areas they may have.

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