Perspectives in Health Magazine
The Magazine of the Pan American Health Organization
Volume 8, Number 2, 2003

He says, "We need to produce more nurses. Nursing should be on the curriculum of our community colleges and other tertiary institutions. We should also establish some kind of compensation arrangement with organizations that recruit our nurses and use the funds from this to train more nurses.

"We have to recognize that the demand for trained nurses in the developed countries will continue indefinitely. Instead of viewing the situation as a crisis, we must analyze it for the opportunities that it undoubtedly contains. There are benefits that we can exploit for our countries and for our nurses. Most of those who leave remit money to relations here and buy property, intending to return home when they retire."

Gloria Noel believes the solution must be as multifaceted as the problem. She says the Caribbean and other regions with this problem, such as Africa, need to implement sound long-range human resources planning; improve the image of nursing; increase enrollment of male and female students and marginal groups in nursing schools; redesign curricula to make nursing education programs more exciting and challenging, including adding mentoring programs; enhance opportunities for professional development and career progression; improve working conditions; match clinical practice opportunities and responsibilities with nurses' knowledge and skills; recognize nurses as equal partners with physicians in the health team; and compensate nurses commensurately with their education, experience, responsibilities and contributions to health care.

"These reforms require commitment, cooperation, mutual trust, respect and sustained action on the part of all stakeholders," says Noel. "These include policymakers, health systems planners, and the nursing profession, with input from consumers of health care."

Whether sheer necessity will prompt these needed interventions remains to be seen, but whatever happens, the role of nurses in the development of health care will continue to be pivotal. They are the wheel and hub of health services.

As Noel told nurses at a recent conference on the future of nursing in Guyana: "It takes a special person to be a nurse. You are the unsung heroes, the unseen angels. Be the best that you can be. Celebrate each other, be strong, view the many frustrations as challenges, take care of yourselves, as you are the fabric and future of health care in this country and the world."

Tony Deyal is a former advisor to the Pan American Health Organization and currently an underpaid newspaper columnist in Trinidad. He was last seen trying to find the help-wanted ads in Arab News.

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