PHA says logistics for re-entry of nursing students to be completed in short order
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A handful of nursing students from the University of the Bahamas (UB) demonstrated in Rawson Square yesterday over the inability to graduate due to what they said was the government’s failure to allow them to gain clinical service experience needed to graduate.
Grace Lightbourne, a nursing student representative and fourth-year student, said the government has allowed medical students and trained clinical nurses to rotate in the hospital to complete their graduation requirements, but nursing students have been left “on the sidelines”.
“We need nurses,” she said.
“There has been a nursing shortage all over the world for years, but every week, every month, we see that we’re losing nurses and the government is crying about the nursing shortage, but we have hundreds of students here, willing to graduate, ready to get in on the frontline, but they’re pushing us aside.”
Shakanah Curry, a four-year nursing student, said nursing students are prepared to answer the government’s call for nurses and work and “serve and care for the Bahamian people”.
A reported 200 nursing students are seeking to gain the clinical experience necessary to graduate.
Neither Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis nor Minister of Health Renward Wells, who headed to the House of Assembly in Parliament Square for the 2021/2022 budget debate yesterday, stopped to engage the nursing students, who continued to demonstrate well into the afternoon as the debate continued in Parliament.
Bahamas Nurses Union (BNU) President Amancha Williams stood with the nursing students in support of their plight.
The group held up placards that read: “Free us, so UB can degree us”, “Why import nurses; we’re right here” and “Put Bahamian nurses first Minister Wells”.
In response to Exumas and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper, who raised the issue during his contribution to debate in the House of Assembly, the health minister said clinical services and training had resumed for nursing students in The Bahamas, however, there was a handful that missed the rotation.
He indicated the matter was being addressed and those nursing students will be able to sit exams in November.
In April, Wells appealed for available nurses in The Bahamas to come forward to help in the fight against COVID-19.
In a statement, the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA said it implemented measures dating back to March 2020 to ensure the safety of anyone entering its institutions or agencies as part of the national coronavirus protocols.
It said those protocols also governed the facilitation of clinical services and training programs.
“It is against the backdrop that the PHA wishes to advise that during the period March 2020 to March 2021, students from the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of The Bahamas (UB) were unable to access the clinical environment at our institutions,” the PHA said.
According to the PHA, students from the Trained Clinical Nurse Program commenced their 14-week rotation in the clinical environment of the PHA, beginning with Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) on May 10.
Logistics for the re-entry of the Bachelor of Science Nursing Students is expected to be completed in short order, the PHA said, adding that it maintains the highest standards of compliance with COVID-19 protocols for the “well-being of patients, visitors and staff at our facilities”.
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