THE Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) says resignations due to “burnout and overload” have led to an alarming 1:35 nurse to patient ratio in the public sector.

Addressing the Human Resources and Social Development Committee of Parliament Wednesday, NAJ members said “the system is threatened by a severe shortage of all cadres of health workers, especially nurses, doctors and pharmacists with an annual attrition rate of up to 15 per cent for nurses as a result of migration”.

“The increase in patient load has impacted significantly on the nurse/patient ratio. For example the nurse patient ratio should be one nurse to 10 patients and the present ratio that exists is one nurse to 35 patients and we are not exaggerating,” First Vice-President of the NAJ Sharon Brown Brotherton told the meeting.

Using the maternity hospital — the Victoria Jubilee — as a case in point, Brown Brotherton said while there was a 54 per cent shortage of midwives islandwide, at that institution alone there was a 61 to 65 per cent shortage of registered nurses and registered midwives.

She said the 163 staffing cadre at that hospital was over 30 years old.

Meanwhile, in reference to news reports patients at the Kingston Public Hospital were at one point being kept on stretchers because of a shortage of beds, Brown Brotherton said the number of admissions at that facility have escalated to the point where “it’s not only stretchers anymore but they are on benches and chairs”. She said also that patients at the Victoria Jubilee have had similar experiences.

“… Labour ward patients had to be sitting on benches awaiting beds; that is how serious a situation we had. That is not the standard of care we want,” she said.

In addition, the NAJ first vice-president told the House committee that there was a lack of training for nurses in several specialty areas in the public sector, including the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre, a specialist facility that focuses on the restoration of persons who are physically challenged due to spinal injuries or trauma.

“When we look at our specialities we do not have any trained persons in orthopedic nursing, we only have one presently in ophthalmology and one in oncology who is now retired,” she said.

“We have no training in rehabilitative care, there is no nurse in this country employed in the Government that is trained in rehabilitative care. Yes, we have the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre but none of the staff members there are trained as rehabilitative nurses,” she said.

“Orthopedics, which is a major concern in this country, where we have so many motor vehicle accidents we do not have nurses trained in orthopedics; we do not have nurses trained in urology and we do not have nurses trained in burns care. We do not even have nurses specialising in medical surgical nursing,” she added.

Brown Brotherton said while the good intent behind Government’s free health care policy was respected, the lack of human and physical resources had not been addressed prior to the introduction of the policy leading to myriad problems.

The ruling Jamaica Labour Party Government, after winning the 2007 general elections, removed user fees from all hospitals with the exception of the University Hospital of the West Indies and health centres, in fulfilment of one of its campaign promises.

The administration, which provided an initial $3.8 billion to support the implementation of the policy, said its introduction has resulted in taxpayers being saved $8 billion.

User fees were introduced in hospitals and health centres in 1984 to support the budgetary allocations to the health sector.