Training opportunities in health sector expanding – Minister Anthony

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, M.P, said the ministry is expanding its training programmes to upscale the services offered in the health sector.

He made this announcement during the Davis Memorial Hospital nurses graduation ceremony on Sunday. He said Guyana’s health sector will offer a wide range of career opportunities to budding health workers.

“There are so many opportunities now in health and what we want to do is to guide people to make sure that they can take advantage of these opportunities within the ministry itself, and the training division that we have in the ministry.”

Currently, the ministry has 16 training programmes including community health workers, pharmacy aid, pharmacy assistant, nursing assistant, and multi-purpose technicians.

The ministry is working to modernise the way education is delivered in the sector by placing theoretical nursing courses online. This initiative will be accessible to both private and public health facilities to provide and generate more training opportunities.

“We’re not going to be constrained by a classroom space because we will now have persons being at home, persons being at their work places where ever it is and they can be trained on the theoretical side of nursing.  We will bring people in to do those practical components of nursing and so we can move more people and train more people and much more quickly than we are doing currently. This is what is being done globally, people are being trained with these online courses and therefore, we have to move with the technology, and with the opportunities that technology brings.”

Additionally, the ministry has partnered with several prestigious universities such as McMasters Canada and York University to offer post- graduate training for doctors, who completed medical school and earned their residency.

The training is being administered at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation through the faculty of Schulich School at the University of York and offers a wide array of courses in 12 to 14 programmes.

Some 20 students have been selected for the nine-month certificate programme, to attain new specialised skills, to provide better health care services.

The health minister further noted that the ministry is expected to partner with the University of the West Indies, so health care students could do fellowship programmes there.