Kali­fa Clyne

A bill has been sent to the Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mit­tee to al­low for ad­vance nurs­ing prac­ti­tion­ers to car­ry out func­tions that are nor­mal­ly per­formed by doc­tors, says Min­is­ter of Health Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis.The bill seeks to ex­pand the port­fo­lio of reg­is­tered nurs­es by open­ing the way for them to play a more ex­ten­sive role in the de­liv­ery of health­care.It will al­so help to ad­dress the cur­rent short­age of doc­tors, the min­is­ter said.Ad­dress­ing a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for nurs­es, Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said nurs­es who had al­ready re­ceived ad­vanced train­ing could not car­ry out those func­tions be­cause of a lack of prop­er leg­is­la­tion.More than 350 nurs­ing as­sis­tants, mid­wives and reg­is­tered nurs­es re­ceived cer­tifi­cates at the Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day.

Ex­pand­ing fur­ther on the ben­e­fits of ad­vanced nurs­ing, the Min­istry's Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary San­dra Jones said nurs­es would be able to take more of a lead­er­ship role in pri­ma­ry health care along­side physi­cians.She said T&T was be­hind in terms of the bill as coun­tries such as the Unit­ed States and Ja­maica al­ready al­lowed for ad­vanced prac­tices for nurs­es.Jones said with the prop­er train­ing, nurs­es would be able to make mi­nor di­ag­noses and pro­vide pre­scrip­tions for pa­tients.The bill al­so in­cludes a reg­is­ter for nurs­es who spe­cialise in var­i­ous fields of med­i­cine.