The Ministry of Health and Wellness held an orientation event for new health care professionals at the Breezes Resort on Monday.
More than forty nurses, most from Ghana, and fourteen doctors were welcomed to The Bahamas’ the public health care system. While speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the event, Minister of Health and Wellness, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville said, “I’m pleased to report that we have ten doctors that we have recruited and these doctors will be filling the gaps in the Department of Public Health in many of our remote family islands. We have also recruited forty nurse from Ghana. The PHA is also here with us today and the majority of these nurses will be deployed at the Princess Margaret Hospital and the Rand Memorial Hospital to fill the gaps that currently exist in the system.”
Meanwhile outside of the orientation venue, a small number of nurses protested. Their main grievances were not receiving their letters of appointment and outstanding money. President of the Bahamas Nurses Union, Muriel Lightbourne said, “the word of God tells us that if a man does not take care of his own children he is worse than an infidel, an infidel is an unbeliever. So are you telling me that you don’t believe in your people.”
Everinique Young is one of the nurses who are waiting to be regularized since 2023. She told reporters, “you working every day, forty hours, come on please, don’t forget about us. We are here. They’re saying the nurses leavin’, we here. We graduated in 2023, we didn’t go abroad.”
In his response to the protest Dr. Darville attributed the delay in regularization to the vetting process which is out of his hands. “I assure the nurses who graduated in 2023, who are a part of the orientation program upstairs and those in 2024 that we will continue to push forward to expedite the process to make sure that this process doesn’t take this long. Because the Ministry of Health always seems to get the bad end of the stick as a result of a process that is responsible for public service.”
