‘A golden opportunity to give back’
J’can nurse living in US joined Code Care project to help countrymen
Published:Saturday | October 7, 2023 | 12:07 AM
When registered nurse Joan Williams-Wilks heard of the call for specialist nurses within the diaspora to assist Jamaica in clearing a backlog of surgeries, it presented the perfect opportunity to act on her wish to give back to her compatriots.
Originally from St Ann, Williams-Wilks said it was a “golden opportunity” because she loved her island home and that it was only fitting for her to be a part of the programme as she was homegrown.
She was one of five nurses who came to Jamaica on September 30 and are scheduled to leave the island today.
On Friday, the nurses were acknowledged for their service to the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) under the Code Care project at a send-off held at the hospital.
The health ministry kicked off its Code Care programme with a pilot group last December as it recruited medical staff to improve wait times for elective surgeries such as cataracts as well as oral and sinus cancers.
Since March 2020, when the first COVID-19 case was detected in Jamaica, many hospitals suspended normal processing of elective surgeries, which resulted in the extension of the length of time that persons wait for these operations, sometimes up to two years.
The Code Care programme was introduced to ease that stress, with the intended engagement of specialist nurses and support staff in the form of nursing missions to support the local nursing cadre for between seven and 14 days and the aim of enabling at least 2,000 additional surgeries in facilities islandwide.
TRAINING
Williams-Wilks told The Gleaner on Friday that she trained at the downtown Kingston-based KPH after graduating from university in 1978.
She then went on to do her bond for two years at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine before doing a year in the operating room at The University Hospital of the West Indies, after which she emigrated to New York, where she worked for several years.
She moved to Fort Lauderdale in Florida after her retirement in 2016.
Williams-Wilks, who obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education in the United States, is also a certified operating room nurse.
“I wanted to give back to my country and that’s why I came because I love Jamaica. It’s not that I wanted to leave; it’s because of an opportunity that was given me,” she said.
“But y’know, I love home and I always wanted to give back, and after I retired, I was trying to give back, but some of the things [fell] through, so when Code Care came in and I heard about [it], I applied,” she explained.
Beaming with a bright smile, Williams-Wilks gushed about the “warm embrace” she and the other nurses received once they entered KPH to offer assistance under the programme.
“They just embraced us and took us in like family, ... and that’s one of the things I always enjoy about Jamaica, so that’s why I always come back if I can,” she said, adding that if she is needed again, it would be a pleasure to return to offer her services to the hospital.