Nadaleen Singh

The Gov­ern­ment plans to spend $1.5 mil­lion to con­tin­ue the dis­trict health vis­it­ing pro­gramme for nurs­es in the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2012/2013. The pro­gramme aims to help them func­tion like com­mu­ni­ty health nurs­es.

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Fazal Karim made the an­nounce­ment at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence. "The course is com­plet­ed in one aca­d­e­m­ic year, two se­mes­ters where par­tic­i­pants to the dis­trict health pro­gramme are reg­is­tered nurs­es, who are ex­pe­ri­enced mid­wives and up­on com­ple­tion, the prac­ti­tion­er would be able to de­liv­er qual­i­ty health­care in a va­ri­ety of set­tings to in­di­vid­u­als clients, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties," he said.

He said it would in­clude in­struc­tion in the pre­ven­tion of dis­eases and the pro­mo­tion of health through im­mu­ni­sa­tion, men­tal and child health pro­grammes, health ed­u­ca­tion, home-based care and the es­tab­lish­ment of new pro­grammes. He said the min­istry notes that there con­tin­ues to be an in­ad­e­quate num­ber of dis­trict health nurs­es avail­able to work at health­care in­sti­tu­tions in T&T. Karim said train­ing for the nurs­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies is ex­pect­ed to move to the Nurs­ing Acad­e­my in El Do­ra­do.