NURSE practitioners signing up for the newly launched certificate-level programmes through the St Augustine Private Hospital’s Department of Health Education said they were happy to have the opportunity to level up their credentials.
Nurse Candice Lesee said she was very excited about the opportunity to expand her training.
“I was waiting for this course for so long. I had done job training through Servol and this was one area I loved. I have been asking God to get back in a place of blessing. I was happy when I heard about this course as I have experience in the surgical theatre field.”
Nurse Keshawna Cyrus said she wanted to work towards advancing her knowledge of the profession.
“I always had a passion for nursing, from watching shows and developing a passion. I always look out for different courses that may help me. As soon as this course came up on my page I applied for it one time, because I always wanted to do this. I did some surgical theatre work and it has always been a passion of mine.
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Nursing assistant Kerise Joseph said she wanted a better opportunity to advance herself and be a little more marketable in the healthcare sector.
Speaking at the launch of the Department of Health Education at The University Inn and Conference Centre, UWI Campus, St. Augustine, on April 11, keynote speaker UWI nursing director Dr Oscar Ocho said nursing has moved from being an art practiced by those with big hearts and no education to a science.
“It requires more than clinical skills with proficiency and expertise, but a reliance on competence, which is the combination of theoretical and clinical information through the application of scientific principles, rooted in evidence-involved practice. It has evolved with its own body of knowledge which is rooted in grand as well as middle-range theoretical frameworks.
“Nurses are not expected to be mere spectators, executing orders as prescribed by the medical officers. Our roles have evolved to the point that we share a professional space, where clinical and administrative decision-making occur. This evolved position could not have been possible without the commensurate level of professional development through education.”
He said the initiative must be recognised as there could be no health system without the contribution of nurses. He said there were several key competencies which nurses should develop to be effective.
“One, emotional intelligence – we need to know how to deal with differences in opinion, recognising that not agreeing with a recommendation is not a personal attack or attempt to discredit.
"Secondly, research competence – if this evolution is to become sustainable, we must all see our roles as not only consumers of evidence, but as contributors to the development of evidence, so even the data collated from patients can become a repository from which we can continue to build our evidence-based practice.”
Ocho said the third competency was systems thinking, where nurses must see themselves as integral members of the clinical and management team, understanding how decisions impact the healthcare system as a whole.
He said the fourth competency was academic preparation, as information keeps changing. He said each nurse and midwife must keep up with changes to inform how they practiced.
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Health Ministry national nursing administrator Sherma Alexander-Campbell said the nursing services unit at the ministry was keen to develop the budding nursing relationships with private-sector healthcare providers.
“Through departments and initiatives such as this, we will see increased education that enhances patient safety through proper training which will ensure health professionals follow best practices.
"Health-care practitioners will be improved so we will see efficiency, better use of advanced technology and continuous education which allows staff to stay updated and relevant.”
Alexander entreated the nurses to practice compassion as they interacted with patients, describing it as the heart of healthcare practice.
“Taking action to relieve another’s pain or suffering is compassion. Compassion gives hope. Patients give hope. We are not to give false hope that we believe their disease can be cured beyond science, but we can give hope to patients with uncontrolled diabetes, that they can gain control, and hope for an overweight patient that they will lose weight.
"The presence of compassion has the power to improve patient outcomes.
“None of us wants to be on the receiving end of someone who lacks humanity. Some would say there is a compassion crisis in healthcare. We seem to be focused more on our own needs than on those of patients that we have decided to care for.”
TT Nursing Council president Corey George commended SAPH for its investment in education and up-skilling the health workforce.
“Nurses and midwives make up the largest percentage of the healthcare workforce. Investing in their growth is not just beneficial, it is transformational. As we adopt new methods, we must also ensure our educational approaches remain grounded in evidence-based practice, because quality care begins with quality education.”
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The two year-long courses will train nurses to be surgical scrub technicians and anaesthetic technicians. The courses will be hybrid, with nine months of e-learning and a three-month apprenticeship, along with clinical rotations under the supervision of qualified professionals. They will cost $12,000 each with a $1,000 registration fee. The programme can be used to enter the registered nurse programme.
