NAJ seeks clarity on scheme to bring back overseas nurses on temporary basis

The Nurses Association of  Jamaica (NAJ) is demanding clarity on a programme being proposed to allow nurses who take up jobs overseas to return to Jamaica to work on a temporary basis.

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton announced on Friday that the programme is being formulated by the Jamaican government and overseas health institutions.

However, NAJ president Patsy Edwards Henry has told Radio Jamaica News that no discussion was held with the group on the matter.

She also wants answers on what will be used to entice nurses to return to Jamaica, saying there's need "understand the whole dynamics of nurses and migration, because over the last ten/fifteen years nurses have been migrating with their families."

This, she said, was a departure from the earlier practice which would see the nurse leaving her family behind, and take several years to settle before being joined by the rest of her family overseas. Now, she pointed out, the contract package to lure Jamaican nurses includes the entire family migrating with together immediately. 

Against that background, she said she was "just a little bit curious about what is going to be offered to these nurses who have sold their homes."

Others, she said, could not afford a house in Jamaica, which contributed to their decision to migrate, in the first place. 

Mrs Edwards Henry also contends that the government can do more to retain nurses in Jamaica, by investing nursing in Jamaica .

If that is done, "I do believe that a number of our nurses will stay," she asserted, adding that "not all the nurses who go want to go; a number of them go because they had no other choice at the time..."