AT the height of the COVID-19 pandemic Alleshia Rutty made a bold decision to leave her job of 12 years to answer the national call for more health-care workers and enrol in nursing school.

However, four years later, the registered nurse now finds herself unemployed and struggling to secure a job.

And, she is not alone.

Many of her batchmates are also on a fruitless job hunt amid the all-too-familiar reports about Jamaica’s chronic nursing shortage. Health officials have publicly acknowledged the gap, and nurses across the island have staged multiple protests demanding better wages, improved working conditions, and increased staffing.

In fact, the Ministry of Health is expected to, on Monday, welcome a group of volunteer nurses from Nigeria, who will serve Jamaica’s health system as part of efforts to address prevailing human resources for health challenges in the country.

Despite this reality, newly trained nurses like Rutty remain on the sidelines, highlighting a glaring disconnect between demand and employment opportunities.

Rutty said that she worked as a customer service representative for Courts Jamaica Limited for 12 years before leaving when her passion for nursing and entering the profession consumed her thoughts.

“Over the years, I would have seen the need, and at some point in your life you would want to take on something else. I would have done my research and said, ‘Okay, nursing is an honourable profession and I can make a difference based on the complaints and what is happening,’ ” she told the Jamaica Observer.

She enrolled at Knox Community College School of Nursing in 2020 and, after graduating in October 2024, started to job hunt. Rutty said over the past nine months she’s applied to multiple hospitals, health centres, and clinics across the island, only to be told that they are not hiring new nurses.

She said she even offered to volunteer to gain much-needed experience and was shut down.

“They’re putting it out that it’s specialised nurses that they need. They say that, but at the same time you’re wondering what do they put in place to get nurses, because I graduated in October and in a few months I would have been working for a year [if I had got a job] and, possibly, I could even be going into a speciality area just now.

“A lot of us are willing to go specialise, but we don’t even get our feet in so that we can do speciality, so what is the plan of action?” she questioned.

Rutty said the job hunt is gruelling, and she’s been forced to take extreme measures to improve her chances of getting hired.

“I once took three days, bought $10,000 in gas, and dropped off 32 applications for a nurse position in Manchester and Clarendon,” she told the Observer.

Another recent graduate of Knox Community College School of Nursing, who requested anonymity out of fear of backlash for speaking out, said the job search experience has been similar.

“I’ve applied to every place I can think of across Jamaica, both private and public — no return, no calls, no nothing. When I reach out to them, they’re saying they are not hiring. They don’t know when they will be hiring, and they did not receive any money from the Government in the new budget to do any hiring; that’s all I’ve been hearing.

“I applied to every hospital I could think of across Jamaica, from Kingston to St Thomas to St Ann to Montego Bay, [St James], Manchester, and also health departments, and nothing,” said the registered nurse, who also graduated last October.

“It’s hard to spend so many years doing a course like this and, after completion, nothing. Some of us have student loans to repay, which we are supposed to start paying in September. How do they expect us to pay the student loan when they don’t provide any jobs for us? Some of us have family members who are depending on us, so how do they expect us to survive?

“They don’t tell us these things. They make it seem as if once you are finished you’re going to get a job in a hospital,” the frustrated registered nurse added.

In response to enquiries from the Observer related to the plight of the new nurses, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton said there are a couple of reasons spaces may not be available.

TUFTON…it depends on the category of nurse

“Firstly, it depends on the category of nurse. There are significant shortages, as I’ve always said, in some of the specialised fields. Operating theatre nurses, critical care nurses, nephrology nurses, oncology nurses — those are very short — neonatal intensive care unit nurses, so those are specialised areas, and that’s where the bulk of the shortage is.

“Registered nurses may be short in some parishes and some institutions, and sometimes some persons may not want to live in those parts, in Portland, Savanna-la-Mar, [Westmoreland], that kind of thing. In the Corporate Area, like University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) or Spanish Town or Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), where the bulk of the population is, you find that the applications tend to target those institutions,” the health minister told the Observer.

He said that while he could not comment on the specifics of each case, location and area of specialisation are two main factors that could be making it difficult for graduates to become employed.

Tufton also offered to help the graduates in their search.

In the meantime, the president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) Dawn-Marie Richards said the challenges could be a result of changes within the employment system for nurses.

“Time gone by the graduates would have been employed in a temporary capacity after leaving school when they apply or if they are recruited by the [health] regions or other facilities, but what I was told when this matter came to the fore a couple of months ago and I investigated, I was told that the employment systems have changed.

“If there is no actual post number for the person to be employed against, they will not be employed. That is what I was told by the regional health authority,” she disclosed to the Observer.

Richards said she has heard numerous reports about nursing graduates who are struggling to find employment amid reports of a nurse shortage on the island. However, she confirmed that the shortage is mainly due to a lack of specialised nurses.

She said the NAJ has advocated for training opportunities for local nurses, but at the same time said it is not categorically against international recruitment.

On average, some 500 nurses per year have left the system since 2018, including specialist nurses.

In January of this year, Jamaica entered into a partnership with the Philippines to address human resource challenges in the health-care sector. The agreement covers faculty and trainer exchanges, professional training and certification, as well as collaboration in areas such as biotechnology, medical equipment, epidemiology, and health-care management. It is also expected to facilitate exchange visits for specialist nurses and other health-care professionals.

Dr Tufton, during a sitting of the House of Representatives in February, also responded to queries from the Opposition on whether they would seek to import nurses to Jamaica. At the time, he said he was not opposed to the idea, but wanted to first explore locally.

The minister announced in April that Jamaica and the Philippines signed an agreement for the training of local health professionals at the University of the Philippines Manila. Jamaica also has long-standing agreements with Cuba, with more than 300 Cuban health-care workers on the island.

Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica’s foreign affairs minister, also met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ghana Samuel Ablakwa, in May, to re-energise bilateral relations, cultural ties, and cooperation on human resources in both health and education. In a post on his social media account, the Ghanaian foreign minister revealed that, “Jamaica is ready to receive nurses and teachers from Ghana under a special bilateral partnership.”

A third nursing graduate, who also requested anonymity, said the revelation that Jamaica would be receiving nurses from Ghana was disturbing, considering the difficulties graduates are facing while seeking employment.

“Why is it you’re going to go outside of the country now and take nurses? How do you think we feel as local nurses? I feel very unwanted and very much not appreciated,” said the recent graduate.

“The okay thing to do is to become self-resilient, meaning you need to start training nurses who are here. This October, like it or not, there’s a new batch of students graduating. We graduated before, I have friends who told me that they are waiting from 2022, 2021, so those batches are still inclined, still lagging, still unemployed.

“You think the solution is to get nurses from overseas because the specialty area is lacking. Why not put [people] on the job training, send [people] to go train and retrain? I think that’s a permanent solution. I think that’s a solution where we can make nursing work,” the nurse told the Observer.

The registered nurse said they applied to all major hospitals in the Corporate Area, including UHWI, KPH, Spanish Town, and Bellevue hospitals. They said they also expanded their search to areas such as Portland, St Thomas, and St Ann, and after months of rejection they are fearful their years of training will be for naught.

“Nursing is a practice career. It’s not a career where we just stay there, and after a while it comes back. You have to keep practising, and it’s very dynamic, so the practice tends to change. When you stay home, after a while it is expected for you to start forgetting stuff because you’re not doing them,” said the registered nurse.

They shared that on one occasion they were told to try primary health care, but they had similar challenges.

“When I went, they were saying that you need at least whatever years of experience, and I’m like, how do I get experience if nobody wants to hire me? I did everything. I did my four-year degree, I didn’t fail anything. I did my licence exam; I passed my licence exam, every thing that is required, so it is within those four years the Government is supposed to make provision and preparation for us, and nothing,” the frustrated nurses said.

RICHARDS…time gone by the graduates would have been employed in a temporary capacity after leaving school when they apply

On average, some 500 nurses per year have left the local health system since 2018, including specialist nurses.