THE DAYS of untrained nursing auxiliaries caring for the elderly are seemingly at an end.
That’s because the Ministry of Health has been ensuring that regulations in the 2008 Nurses Act pertaining to the elderly are being complied with by nursing home administrators and their staff.
Chief nursing officer Mitchell Clarke told the SATURDAY SUN the law required that people applying for jobs in private nursing homes had to be enrolled in the Barbados Nursing Council and to be a member, one had to undergo at least six months’ relevant training. He revealed that currently over 1 000 nursing auxiliaries were enrolled in the council, with only 116 of these working within Government.
“A lot of nursing homes are popping up in the island and they have been bringing in people to work and some of them do not have much skill. So we would have included in the Nurses Act [rules] to regulate the nursing auxiliary and there are stipulations that these persons must undergo training for at least six months,” he said.
He added that since the act stipulated these care-givers had to undergo training, the nursing council would have developed a model curriculum for that programme. He noted that institutions which provided training in the care of elderly had to structure their programmes based on the curriculum the council had developed.
Clarke also said the health ministry, in conjunction with the Barbados Community College, would be developing a programme in gerontology next year. (WG)
