122 Ghanaian nurses arrive to work as QEH battles nurse shortage still Loop Barbados

Black Immigrant Daily News

Another contingent of Ghananian nurses will be joining the Barbados health care system for the next two years.

The nurses who arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport [GAIA] on Monday, October 10 are expected to further improve the current nurse shortage on island.

Speaking to the media at the GAIA, Executive Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland explained that these qualified nurses will be assigned to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and various agencies of the Ministry Of Health.

“We are expecting 66 nurses from Ghana to join the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and 56 to join the agencies of the Ministry Of Health, that is the Geriatric Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital and polyclinic system. These are nurses of all areas of specialization who were recruited specially to join us here in Barbados. All of them have specialist qualifications.”

“Like many hospitals globally, we are facing nursing shortages and they are some countries like Ghana who are producing excellent nurses and producing them for the global market.”

The first cohort of 95 nurses from the Republic of Ghana in West Africa arrived in Barbados in July 2020 on a two-year assignment, then aimed at bolstering the nursing complement in the public health sector on the island. In March of this year, while in Ghana to celebrate its 65th year of independence, prime minister Mia Amor Mottley disclosed the interviewing process for approximately 200 additional Ghanaian nurses had been completed and the healthcare professionals will take up assignments in Barbados.

Ghananian nurses arrive in Barbados on Euro Atlantic

Bynoe-Sutherland explained that in addition to outsourcing nurses from Ghana, efforts are being made to increase the volume of nurses at various institutions on island.”They join us at a time where our need for nursing continues to be great. We are doing our best nationally to ensure that we can increase the output of numbers of nurses at the Barbados Community College and in all of our institutions we enhanced our retention programs for all of the nurses here in Barbados.”

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