Filipino nurses arrive Wednesday

HEALTH MINISTER John Rahael announced that 40 Filipino nurses would arrive in Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday and additional facilities are being made available at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) because of their imminent arrival. Addressing a news conference at the EWMSC, Rahael said this group of nurses would be first members of a contingent of 100 Filipino nurses and 50 pharmacists that would be coming to TT. To date, Government has brought in Cuban and United Nations volunteer medical personnel to fill critical shortages in the local health sector.

The minister said Filipino nurses are regarded as “one of the best and hardest working nurses” worldwide and the nurses in this initial batch were trained in a variety of medical specialities including theatre, general and intensive care. Rahael indicated that these nurses would be based mostly at EWMSC and would not be placed into the system arbitrarily. “Because of their presence we are going to establish two new wards, adding 48 beds to the number of beds that we have here at Eric Williams. With the additional personnel, we are ensuring that we provide additional services and added value to our hospitals,” he explained.

Rahael also said there continues to be positive feedback about the performance of Cuban medical personnel in TT’s health facilities. The minister disclosed that there were four Cuban nurses on duty at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital’s (PoSGH)  intensive care unit (ICU) when he visited the hospital last week. “The head nurse indicated that were it not for those nurses, they would not have been able to take care of the number of patients they had at the ICU unit,” he said.  Rahael added that in ICU, sometimes “you need one or two nurses per patient.”

The minister also spoke about the efforts to increase the number of operating theatres available at EWMSC and PoSGH in order to further reduce surgical backlogs at the nation’s hospitals. Rahael said the PoSGH had four functional operating theatres and was optimistic that a fifth theatre would become operational there by the end of April. At EWMSC, Rahael noted that there were eight functional operating theatres and it was the ministry’s goal to have the other four theatres there fully operational in the shortest possible time.