MONTEGO BAY, St James — Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton wants a partnership to be brokered between some of the developed countries luring the nation’s health care professionals to greener pastures, to assist in the provision of practical training for some of Jamaica’s trainee nurses.

“My position is some of these countries that are demanding our skill sets, maybe we need them to help us with some of the training. So if we can work out a way to do the theoretical training here, and send some of our specialist trainees to be trained in those jurisdictions, [we would] ensure there is certification at the end of the day,” he said.

He added: “Frankly speaking, it is something we are going to have to consider. Because we just don’t have the critical care beds to provide the practical training. So suppose I can send 50 practical nurses to England to train for example for a year? I might lose some of them, but I will get back some too. And I am saying it is a practical approach.”

He explained that there is need for expansion of training for especially specialist nurses, of whom the country has a “chronic shortage”.

“We have a chronic shortage because we lose a lot to the international marketplace,” he explained.

“We have a problem because we lose as many as we train each year and the traditional approach is talk about it, try to discourage it, complain about it, and when we can’t help the situation we go and do some recruiting elsewhere.“

He was speaking on Friday at the Nurses’ Association of Jamaica’s 70th Annual General Meeting and 46th Island Conference at the Iberostar Rose Hall Resort in St James where he voiced the cause for an immediate reform of the health care system to respond to the ageing population, among other challenges.

“The point I am making, ladies and gentlemen, is that we need health care reform in Jamaica and we need it now,” Dr Tufton said.

“We need to assess what we do and how we do it and we need to think out of the box as we seek to find solutions. The fact that it worked well for the last 10 years doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right way to do it for the next 10 years. I am committed to critically evaluate all that is in place now, reconcile the effectiveness of the delivery of the service using what is in place now and where there is a need for change, we are going to have to make the change.”

The health minister bemoaned that despite the growth of the population, not a single public hospital has been constructed for the past quarter century.

“We haven’t built a hospital in Jamaica, probably for the last 25 years. We have done a little expansion here and there, added a few clinics here and there, but when it comes to substantial overhaul of infrastructure, the truth is that we are a quarter century behind in terms of that infrastructure with all that is happening.”