Since, last Wednesday, the nurses of the world have been celebrating International Nurse Week 2020. It's a particularly timely nod of respect to these healthcare workers. They are currently on the front-lines of the global coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed 290,000 lives around the globe.
Nurses week concluded with International Nurse Day, which was observed today. To say thanks to the almost 600 nurses in Belize's healthcare system, two of the leading figures in the profession made an appearance on the Government Press Office's Ask the Experts webcast. Here's a short excerpt about the challenges that nurses in Belize are currently facing, while on the fight against COVID-19:
Eleanor Bennett, Registrar, Nursing and Midwife Council
"Is there a shortage for local why we are bringing nurses from overseas?"
Ann Matute, Acting Deputy DHS
"Of course we have a huge shortage. The WHO (World Health Organization) has said that we need 105 nurses per 10,000 population for us to be working in the health system, so we could give better quality of care to our patients. In Belize we have 23 nurses per 10,000, not even half of the 105, so we are very short and what is happening is that our nurses that we have right now are overworked, they become fatigue, you have a lot of nurses being absent from work because they are tired."
Eleanor Bennett
"And the shortage of nurses is not a problem that is unique to Belize, it's an issue all over the world and of course we appreciate the work of our foreign nurses, however, it would be great if we had a complete cadre of nurses that were only Belizeans, but we certainly don't have enough people interested in the profession and yes that contributes to the shortage."
"How many active nurses are there in the country and what is the male to female ratio? Nurse Matute says that its 598 active nurses and that counting Karl Heusner staff and so of that 598 we have a decent percentage of foreign nurses who also come to our country and work in our health system and so its a combination of Belizean nurses, foreign nurses from countries such as the Philippines, Nicaragua, USA and some other countries. So those nurses are not exclusively Belizeans."
Ann Matute, Acting Deputy DHS
"We have sex distribution; we have 95% females and 5% are males."
Eleanor Bennett
"I think when I started nursing we didn't have any male nurses, maybe one or two, but now I know that there are more and more men than are interesting in nursing and are becoming nurses, but it's still a female dominated profession with 95% of the practicing nurse re females."
The theme of this year's International Nurse Week was "Nurses: A Voice to Lead - Nursing the World to Health."
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