Health care workers receive further training
THE Ministry of Health and Labour is continually upgrading its professional health care workers by providing training for them. In an effort to address the shortage of Rehabilitation Assistants and X-ray Technicians, the Ministry recently completed two separate one-year training programmes, from which ten students graduated. The Ministry's Director of Standards, Dr Dennison Davis encouraged graduands to rise to the occasion by continually upgrading their skills into more advanced levels of the profession. The Guyana Information Service (GIS) said he emphasised the need for the health workers to improve the team effort which is integrally related to health care by employing the best attitudes in working with other health care professionals. Dr Davis stated that this is essential as patient-care becomes an ultimate necessity and therefore, good customer-relations must be a preoccupation of health workers. Those who were successful in the Rehabilitation Assistant Training Programme are Donna Behari, Donna Bovell, Ena Datson, Stacey Greaves-Britton and Shondelle Phillips. The X-ray Technicians are Michael Douglas, Denise Nelson, Vishwanauth Ramdeen, Janki Jairam and Sady Thom. The introduction of the Rehabilitation Training Programme was seen as a strategy to create a new cadre of rehabilitation workers to address the critical shortage of professionals in rehabilitation services. Coordinator of the programme, Geraldine Maison-Halls disclosed that the strategy was developed to facilitate the provision of a more comprehensive disability prevention and rehabilitation service. This, she added, was intended to increase the coverage for persons with disabilities through institutional, community- based and outreach programmes. The students, drawn from several Regions around the country, were exposed to ten weeks of clinical practice, technology in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. They will join 14 other colleagues who graduated in the first batch in November, last year. The rehabilitation workers will provide care for disabled persons with functional, psycho-social and communication disorders under the guidance of rehabilitation professionals such as a physiotherapist, occupational therapist or speech and language pathologist. According to Ms Maison-Halls, this new cadre of health workers lays the foundation for the strengthening of the system of referrals in the rehabilitation and the consolidation of disability prevention and rehabilitation programmes provided through primary, secondary and tertiary levels of rehabilitation services. Resource persons for the rehabilitation programme were drawn from the rehabilitation clinical service and included therapists and VSOs, Indian and Cuban therapists working under the technical agreements with the Guyana Government. In addition, local as well as expatriate professionals outside the public sector, also provided specific training inputs in the programme. The Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) and Community Based Rehabilitation Programme also provided assistance in identified curriculum areas. PAHO/WHO provided support for the development of the curriculum and also recruited a speech and language pathologist from the Bahamas while an Italian Non-Governmental Organisation, Amici di Raoul Follereau, also provided financial support in strengthening the rehabilitation services. The X-ray Technicians programme was developed after the Radiologists were short in supply though the Ministry had begun training several health workers in radiology about 25 years ago. Coordinator of this programme, Ms Norma Odle, said the students are exposed to training in anatomy, hospital practices, first aid, physics and safety practices in equipment handling.
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