Klao Bell, Staff ReporterAs of January 1, registration for life will be a thing of the past for nurses as they will be required to register with the Nursing Council of Jamaica (NCJ) every two years.
And as each biennial rolls around, nurses will have to prove that they have attended 60 hours of professional enhancing seminars, workshops or courses. In fact, nurses who fail to fulfil this requirement will not be allowed to practise and any person or institution who employs them will be penalised.
The proposal that has been on the shelves since the 1980s is being implemented to force nurses to keep abreast of changes in health care and upgrade themselves academically.
"When persons graduate we need to ensure that they remain current. This is a way of protecting the public and the professional, but it also encourages them to upgrade themselves," said Thelma Deer-Anderson, registrar at the Nursing Council of Jamaica.
Mrs. Deer-Anderson stated that blunders on the part of nurses are often the result of lack of ignorance about new developments in health care.
"Whenever we have had to investigate complaints from the general public we have found that often the action is because of lack of current knowledge," Mrs. Deer-Anderson said.
To stay current, nurses will have to complete 40 hours in courses relevant to nursing, midwifery and general health care and 20 hours in any other educational course.
Some nurses have complained that the required hours are too high while employers stated concern about having to give staff time off. But Mrs. Deer-Anderson said the programme could work effectively for the benefit of both parties.
"All will be required to offer in-service training, most already do. Nurses have all of two years to satisfy the requirements, and they will have to take the initiative to get as much done on their own time," Mrs. Deer-Anderson said.
In-service training consists of seminars offered by hospitals and nurses will earn credits from participation.
"All our staff take mandatory courses in basic cardiac life support, domestic violence, HIV awareness and lactation management. We hold seminars to refresh them of things they learnt in school, right now we are doing seminars on medication application," said Joy Little, director of nursing staff development at the UHWI.
She also stated that an important function of the seminars is "unlearning".
"Health care is so dynamic and some types of medication or practises change rapidly. For example, in the 60s and 70s chloramphenicol was a widely prescribed antibiotic, but it was discovered to have some very harmful side effects, now it is hardly used," Ms. Little pointed out.
Keeping abreast is particularly critical now as one of the Government's strategies to combat the effects of nursing migration is the recruitment of retired nurses, and part-time employment of trained nurses who are no longer practising.
"Biennial registration is a good idea. There are people who left nursing, went into sales, insurance and when they come back they are lost. They don't know about the new drugs or equipment; I've had people ask me what to do," said Myrette Walker a nurse at the Medical Associates hospital in St. Andrew.
Nurses will have to pay $2,000 to register every two years. Registered nurses who also have licences in midwifery or any other area, will have to pay an additional $1,000.
Jamaica is actually a late-comer, as most developed countries and others in the Caribbean require periodic registration for nurses.
