Trainee Patient Care Assistants, Health workers encouraged to have the ‘right attitude’
─ personnel being trained for deployment to the health sector
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, August 20, 2019
A cadre of Patient Care Assistants (PCA) and Community Health Workers (CHW) of the East Berbice-Corentyne Region are currently undergoing training with expectations of graduating by February 2020. Minister of Public Health, Hon. Volda Lawrence took the opportunity to speak with the trainees of her expectations while she was in the region.
She expressed, first and foremost, her pleasure at the fact that many young persons have enrolled themselves to be trained in this discipline. They will, she noted, eventually, give back to their respective communities.
Minister Lawrence shared a few pointers with the trainees to always keep in mind when they begin their service.
“I want people of this region and any other place to be able to say I was treated well; I was spoken to with respect… I want you to remember your first word is ‘service’, the second is ‘respect’; I urge that you carry that forward and continue to make the health profession in Guyana great… All it takes is for you to have the right attitude towards the patients – the people who we serve.”
The minister cemented this statement by adding that public health care services are available to persons since they may not be able to afford it or access it elsewhere.
“The people who come to us are special because they have nowhere else to go. They can’t afford to go to a private doctor, so they have to come to us, and when they do, we must receive them.”
The ministry is collaborating with the regions to train persons in the area of Patient Care and as Community Health Workers. Currently, the East Berbice-Corentyne Region is training 50 Community Health Workers, and 106 Patient Care Assistants for a period of six months.
Minister Lawrence has commended the trainees for joining the health sector.
“Every year we are building new health centres and we expect to see a lot of upgrading of these health centres to polyclinics and this means we will require more human resources to man these facilities… The pivotal element of proving health services is human resources,” she said.