By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

SOME unlicensed nursing school graduates feel they are being ignored by the government and are left in limbo unable to practise.

A large number of graduates of the University of The Bahamas’ nursing programme have been unable to obtain nursing licences due to unattainable clinical hours because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to obtain a licence to practice as a nurse, the Nursing Council requires a certain number of clinical hours. The nursing students have not been able to meet those requirements because of stipulations in COVID-19 protocols which restricted UB from face-to-face clinical training.

One of the nursing school graduates said they were in “limbo” as there was no communication with them. They said no one was trying to get them what they needed besides Bahamas Nurses Union president, Amancha Williams.

“We are in limbo here,” said the nursing school graduate who asked for her name not to be used. “We can’t practice. There is no one pushing the issue for us besides Nurse Amancha Williams. We have been asking everyone what is going on and no one can give us answers.

“We are being ignored. This government ignores everyone. It’s like there is no sense of urgency about anyone’s life or livelihood. There are at least 140 of us in the system waiting to be able to practise as nurses.”

When contacted for comment, Nurse Gina Dean, director of nursing at the Ministry of Health, said the government has in fact started to allow clinical hours for the graduates and chalked it up to poor communication. She sympathises with the frustration experienced by the graduates.

“It’s not that they are unable to graduate,” said Nurse Dean. “They have graduated from the University of The Bahamas so they have their Bachelors of Science in Nursing. The challenge, because of the pandemic, they were not able to complete all of their clinical hours, legally required by the (Nursing) Council.

“The Council requires that before they are able to practise as nurses they have to have a certain number of clinical hours. So in the pandemic when everything was shut down that stopped their training and stopped them from accepting those clinical hours to get what they needed.

“We have now started infiltrating them back into the clinical site. Whoever you spoke to may not have been in the first group to have gained access. We are making sure that all of them receive the clinical hours. The first group went in on the 10th of May. There are two different groups of nurses.”

Nurse Dean explained how the roll out of clinical hours would take place and promised a meeting with all those involved.

“You have trained clinical nurses and then you have those who are trained as registered nurses. Because they were out for a longer period, we started with the trained clinical nurses grouping on the 10th of May,” she said. “We now have a few of the other students from the bachelor’s in nursing programme who have started as well.

“Everyone is going to be completed over the summer and ready for practise to sit their final examination. There are a number of things we had to put in place to have them reintroduced. So I totally understand their frustration. What we are planning right now is to have a meeting with them. A part of this is very likely due to poor communication so they are not aware of everything that is going on.

“They will be brought up to date on exactly what is happening and when each person will be included to complete. That is the biggest problem right now. We have not communicated as well as we should have. It’s a combination of things. The Ministry of Health is really trying to facilitate. The agreement for all of this training is really between UB and all of the different clinical sites where they have to go.”

Nurse Dean said the government will update the Nurses and Midwives Act. The current law has been in existence since 1971.

For her part, Ms Williams said she tried to reach Minister of Health Renward Wells on behalf of the graduates to make suggestions on how to settle the issue.

“(The need is great for) nurses so why don’t you facilitate this the best way?” she asked. There are various things to do without breaching the standards and the requirements of the Council. Americans, Canadians and other Caribbean countries have done it so why can’t we do it? They are allowing them to either do or omit the clinical hours or adjusting it to a minimum.

“I was trying to reach out to Minister Wells for almost four weeks. He had a scheduled meeting with the union and he cancelled it. We called and he won’t answer his phone. What do you do when you cannot talk to the people who can make the changes? When you can’t reach these people you ask the question, are they heartless or they just don’t want to deal with the situation?”

An amendment to the Emergency Powers (COVID-19) Order issued earlier this month allowed student nurses currently undergoing practical training at a public health care facility to be deemed as a registered nurse during the COVID-19 state of emergency.

The order states that those students must also have completed the relevant curriculum of study, however.