Health workers to benefit from training programme
Published:Wednesday | June 4, 2008 | 9:50 AM
The Ministry of Health plans to spend $100 million to set up a training programme, which will benefit about 500 health care workers.
Health Minister, Ruddy Spencer, said the training programme is specifically designed to undertake short-term training of workers to support the team of highly skilled health workers who are already in the system.
Mr. Spencer said the training would target patient care assistants, lab technician assistants, medical records technicians and pharmacy technicians.
He said that training would also be provided for psychiatric aides, operating threatre technicians and anesthetics technicians.
The health minister told parliament yesterday during his contribution to the sectoral debate that the National Health Fund will assist with funding for the training programme.
Mr. Spencer said the programme is a part of strategies being implemented to address the shortage of health workers within the sector.
He said a national health care workforce development plan is to be completed this financial year.
The health minister said the development plan would provide the strategic and policy framework for training, recruitment, remuneration and retention of health workers in the health sector.