Health Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis on Wednesday welcomed 25 foreign nurses to the Trinidad and Tobago health services at an orientation program at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain.
She said she was happy to get the additional personnel considering the fact that there is a global shortage of medically trained practitioners, which is making it difficult for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to fill vacancies within the health sector.
She said it has become necessary to recruit foreigners for the health services in keeping with the development of the sector.
"When you consider the progression of health care in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly the recently planned aggressive expansion of the public health sector...it has become necessary for the Ministry of Health to continue to recruit foreign health professionals in order to sustain the growth of our health sector," she said.
The nurses will go through two weeks of orientation at the North Central and North West Regional Health Authority before taking up assignments to other RHAs.
The plan is to add additional nurses from the Phillipines and Cuba. The minister said India is offering doctors.
"We have gotten the green light from Cabinet but remember when the People's Partnership Government came in, we wanted to give first preference to nationals and we have put it out there, but they are not coming back as often as they should," she said.
Baptiste-Cornelis is hoping to meet with several Trinidad and Tobago nationals who are practicing medicine in the United Kingdom to determine whether they want to return home.
The nurses will go through two weeks of orientation at the North Central and North West Regional Health Authority before taking up assignments to other RHAs.
The plan is to add additional nurses from the Phillipines and Cuba. The minister said India is offering doctors.
"We have gotten the green light from Cabinet but remember when the People's Partnership Government came in, we wanted to give first preference to nationals and we have put it out there, but they are not coming back as often as they should," she said.
Baptiste-Cornelis is hoping to meet with several Trinidad and Tobago nationals who are practicing medicine in the United Kingdom to determine whether they want to return home.
She plans to meet them after attending the 64th World Health Assembly in Geneva from May 16 to 25.
"I am meeting with nationals in the United Kingdom to see what are the stumbling blocks...We heard remuneration is the stumbling block but there is a limit to what we can really offer because I have to be fair to the doctors who have stayed in Trinidad and Tobago...want equitable delivery," she said.
The minister said a priority in recruiting foreign national is language skills. "I want that anyone who comes here can speak English," she said.
4 comments:
THE REAL REASON WHY T&T MINISTRY OF HEALTH IS PLAGUED WITH A SHORTAGE OF MEDICAL STAFF...
MBTT/MPATT are stiffly resisting the idea of Cuban trained Trinbagonian doctors or Cuban doctors meeting the shortage of 275 doctors, because they are afraid that more patients will receive free treatment at public hospitals. MBTT/MPATT members are afraid that they will receive less money through private practice if that happens.
In October 2010, Baptiste-Cornelis said "We want the best doctors, but they have to be affordable” She knows that the best affordable are Cuban doctors. She can have the urgently needed 275 medical staff, 2,517 nurses and 161 pharmacists, on short notice from Cuba, yet she is supporting the MBTT/MPATT combo in their anti-Cuban-doctor campaign, and parroting the MBTT/MPATT combo lie that Cuban doctors do not speak English.
Work permits are being issued to doctors from as far away as India, while contracts of Cuban doctors are not extended, and Cuban trained Trinbagonian doctors have been out of jobs for as long as 6 months because MBTT refuses to grant them licences.
The MBTT/MPATT combo is not acknowledging the ethical principles in patient care. They are misusing their positions to protect their money making interests, over the interests of The People that they have sworn by Hippocratic Oath to uphold.
What can be more hypocritical than that?
TRINBAGONIAN DOCTORS EDUCATED IN CUBA HAVE BEEN UN-EMPLOYED SINCE NOVEMBER 2010 WHILE WORK PERMITS ARE BEING ISSUED TO DOCTORS FROM AS FAR AS INDIA TO TAKE THEIR JOBS!
Trinbagonian doctors educated in Cuba are experiencing hardship because of harsh, oppressive, and discriminatory measures imposed against them by the Medical Board of Trinidad and Tobago (MBTT).
Even with 30,000 doctors abroad, there is 1doctor / 200 people in Cuba, as compared to T&T‘s 1doctor / 1000 people.
While the quality of health service in T&T is low, the financial status of the T&T(UWI) doctors is high, because their patient population is high.
UWI/MBTT/MPATT/ and-the-Minister-of-Health do not resist foreign doctors Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Nigerians, ... because these are temporarily employed doctors who move on to more lucrative markets in Canada, USA, Europe…
CUBAN DOCTORS WILL NOT WORK IN PRIVATE PRACTICE!
UWI/MBTT/MPATT are stiffly resisting the idea of Cuban trained Trinbagonian doctors or Cuban doctors meeting the shortage of 275 doctors, because they are afraid that more patients will receive free treatment at public hospitals. MBTT/MPATT members are afraid that they will receive less money through private practice if that happens.
The doctors who UWI/MBTT/MPATT/ and-the-Minister-of-Health consider to be threats to the UWI/MBTT/MPATT-CACADA, are the xxxxx Trinbagonians who they block from getting into UWI, and more so, those xxxxx Trinbagonians who go on to get their accredited “Doctor in Medicine” degrees in Cuba.
Unlike T&T, Guyana sends about 100 students annually to Cuba to study Human Medicine, not for love of money, but for love of The People.... UWI/MBTT/MPATT/ and-the-Minister-of-Health are afraid that if they open the door to xxxxx Trinbagonian Cuban trained doctors, other xxxxx Trinbagonians would go and study there, opening a floodgate which would threaten the UWI/MBTT/MPATT- CACADA.
There are xxxxx Trinbagonian Doctors educated in Cuba who have already served a 1 year Internship in Cuba, and another 1 year Internship in Trinidad, were found to have performed satisfactorily and were offered House Doctor positions by the Regional Health Authorities. However these xxxxx Trinbagonian Doctors have been out of employment since November 2010, because their Licences are NOT being renewed by MBTT.
On Tuesday, September 9th, 2003, In a media release, the T&T Health Ministry said Cubans are not required to do the Caribbean Association of Medical Councils (CAMC) exam as the MBTT has registered graduates of Cuban Medical Schools and graduates of medical schools in foreign countries. The Health Ministry said there is no legal requirement for the CAMC exam. “In order to register doctors to practise, all that is required is a proper assessment of the doctors’ training, qualifications, experience and competence and this has been the procedure in this country for the last 40 years,” the release stated. An official of the Council of the Medical Board said those graduates referred to were Trinidadians who study in Cuba. Other foreigners registered would have been graduates from the list of schools recognised by the Medical Board. ..As pre-requisites for registering the Cubans, the Ministry had only to certify that the Cubans could communicate in English and that their schools were recognised...
Up to today in T&T, the Cuban doctors without writing CAMC exams are granted registration and allowed to work for three years, while Trinbagonian Doctors educated in Cuba who studied the same Cuban course contents in the same Cuban universities are being denied jobs.
Trinbagonians studying Medicine in Cuba receive the “Doctor en Medicina” degree, recognised by the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT), which visited Cuba about four years ago.
The ACTT, the governing body for the assurance of quality post-secondary and tertiary education in Trinidad and Tobago, was established to monitor and evaluate the quality of educational programmes, to safeguard the interests of students and the public, and to provide an assurance of, and improve the quality of education and training offered to consumers in this country. One of the two reasons cited for establishment of the ACTT is that the UWI Medical Faculty was informed (around 2003) its programmes would no longer be accredited by the General Medical Council (GMC) of Great Britain. Accreditation status with the GMC normally allowed graduates the opportunity to register to practice in most Commonwealth countries without further scrutiny.
T&T HAVE NICE HOSPITAL BUILDINGS BUT SHORTAGE OF MEDICAL STAFF
Cuba has the best doctor-to-population ratio in the world, with one doctor for every 200 people.
Trinidad and Tobago has less than 1 doctor for 1,000 people. Senator the Honourable Therese Baptiste-Cornelis, Minister of Health could go to the American and European countries in search of 275 doctors, 2,467 nurses and 161 pharmacists, and she won’t find them, because those countries don’t have them. Trinidad and Tobago should be looking to form that human capital now.
Cuba is the only country that is offering a free medical school education for students committed to serving the needs of impoverished people. While Guyana is sending hundreds of students to Cuba to study Medicine, the UWI / MBTT/ MPATT , to protect their CACADA , are on an anti-Cuba campaign to maintain the a total shortage of 2,903 personnel in the health sector.
Unlike the previous Minister of Health who fought tooth and claw to get the Cuban doctors here, the present Honourable Therese Baptiste-Cornelis, Minister of Health seems bent on helping to maintain that shortage. You can expect that in 2020, Tobago, like San Fernando, will have a nice Hospital building with a shortage of staff, and T&T will still be a third world country with poor health conditions..
Meanwhile, the few bilingual Trinbagonian doctors educated and trained in Cuba, if they remain in T&T, will be still unemployed, and receiving hell from the MBTT/MPATT combo.
Post a Comment