Strengthening the Human Resource Capacity of the Federation’s Healthcare System is Key to Improving Service Delivery
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, November 02, 2022 (SKNIS) – As an important part of its plans to further enhance the delivery of healthcare services across the Federation, the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis is making a significant investment in developing the skills and capabilities of the country’s healthcare workers.
On Friday, November 04, 2022, a large cohort of healthcare workers will be involved in training with officials from the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and CPR Solutions, which is a US-based organization authorized by the American Heart Association to provide training in a number of areas including Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).
“We will train 200 healthcare professionals to be certified in ACLS, PALS and BLS. These are basic certifications that healthcare professionals, especially doctors and nurses who are at higher levels, are to be trained in. We also have basic life support training as well for our healthcare workers and we’ll have healthcare workers coming over from Nevis,” said Prime Minister the Honourable Dr. Terrance Drew during an appearance on the Freedom SKN Issues programme on Wednesday, November 2, 2022.
The Prime Minister stated that a number of healthcare professionals are also set to participate in an upcoming customer service training session “because one of the issues that people have been complaining of is customer service.”
Prime Minister Dr. Drew said another important aspect of upgrading the healthcare system in the Federation has to do with filling previously vacant positions.
“While we are making the infrastructural changes, we want to make sure that we change the human capacity and take care of the human resource. So far, we now have a Director of Health Institutions—a position that was vacant for a long time. Dr. Jenson Morton has been appointed to that position. We also had an issue where we needed more help with operations at the hospital and Ms. Lindsay Francis, who has a Master’s degree in Operations, is now at the hospital. We’re also getting ready to put in a PNO, a Principal Nursing Officer, so we’re upgrading our professionals and our personnel in the healthcare field and we are also investing in their training as well,” said the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Dr. Drew, a medical doctor by profession, ended by commending the nation’s hardworking healthcare workers, adding that, “if we give them the tools they can even improve upon what they deliver already.”