Nursing Auxiliary Programme launched

Thirty-five students are set to sharpen their skills in areas, including elderly care, through their involvement in the Barbados Community College’s (BCC) Nursing Auxiliary Programme.

This six-month certificate Programme, which is a joint venture between BCC and Sagicor Life Inc., commenced yesterday with a launch ceremony at BCC’s Barbados Language Centre. Among those in attendance was Education Minister, Santia Bradshaw, Health Minister, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bostic and Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Cynthia Forde.

In her address, Bradshaw said the initiative, which is open to persons 17 years and older, is both welcomed and valued. She further described the assistance from Sagicor as timely. Those who are trained as auxiliary nurses are appropriately placed to applyfor employment at The Estates at St. George.

“The visionary leadership at Sagicor would have recognised that in developing a premier product at The Estates at St. George, there must be premier services at every level including care of the elderly. Sagicor Life Inc. has consequentially invested substantially in this training process and in so doing has not only considered the needs of its project but the development of the nursing programme at this College as well,” she said.

Bradshaw pointed out that through their partnership, Sagicor Life Inc. “funded a trip to Canada for two of the Barbados Community College representatives where they were further sensitised to what was required to be able to operate the facility. It has outfitted a state-of-the-art experiential training laboratory at the College. It has covered the cost of advertising for the Nursing Auxiliary Studies Programme and it has even gone beyond what was in the original MOU by including funding for a full-time tutor for the first cohort of students. And also, to their credit the repainting of this beautiful building.”

Meanwhile in his remarks, Bostic voiced his support of the Programme while outlining that “nursing auxiliaries can play a very, very significant role in this country. Not only with elderly care but also in terms of community care…”

“There is a wide scope for the use of nursing auxiliaries in this country. In health, we found for example… the St. Michael District Hospital known as the Geriatric Hospital, that a lot of persons reside in those facilities that really ought not to be there but they are there because that is the only place where they would get that kind of care,” Bostic said.

He added it is imperative going forward that government tries “to build up some sort of capacity that would allow us to be able to look after our elderly in their own homes and in their own communities, and even the fact that right now it is such a huge task that we as a Ministry, we have to engage the services of private elderly care facilities to partner with us, the Alternative Care of the Elderly Programme and still…, we do not have enough capacity. So this is a worrying problem. So I strongly support this course, the launch of this programme, and I know that it will do very, very well for this country going forward.” (MG)