Job seekers flock to health ministry fair
Published:Thursday | January 23, 2025 | 12:14 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Health and Wellness is embarking on what it says is the third phase of its 10-year strategic plan to transform the health sector by strengthening its human resource capacity.
On Wednesday, the first day of a two-day job fair at The University of the West Indies, Mona, aimed at filling around 600 vacancies across various departments, hospitals, health centres, and agencies, drew hundreds of potential candidates from all over the island.
Although there were complaints about the organisation of the event, many of the job seekers who were waiting eagerly for an interview expressed optimism that they would be successful.
One job seeker who requested anonymity said she travelled from St Elizabeth and was hopeful that she would be able obtain a job with the social work degree she achieved four years ago.
“It would change my life,” she told The Gleaner, sharing that she was unemployed.
Another prospective employee, who travelled from Manchester for the job fair, lamented the long wait to be interviewed after arriving on the university campus about 9:00 a.m. but was yet to be interviewed at almost 1:00 p.m. yesterday.
“A bit more organisation would have been good. Probably dem neva expect seh so much people would come, but then it shows how many people unemployed and really want a work in this country,” she said.
Describing the approach as innovative, Tufton hit back at criticism from Opposition Spokesman on Health Dr Alfred Dawes that the job fair was a “massive PR (public relations) stunt to create the illusion that something is being done”.
“That kind of analysis is very shallow and is, perhaps, because of a lack of understanding about the vision and the big picture, and the 10-year strategic plans. We cannot build hospitals and then have them efficiently execute if we don’t man them, and one of the biggest problems we have is the shortage of people,” Tufton said.
Addressing the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness revealed that 800 nurses left the health sector in 2023 and that 40 per cent of whom were specialist nurses.
“We recognise that the health system we can improve the infrastructure, we can improve the facilities, but to get the care in health, we have to build the human capacity, and that is what today is about in the transformation exercise,” Holness underscored.
The prime minister stated that the migration has impacted the health ministry greatly. A similar problem, he noted, was shared by the Republic of The Philippines.
PACT TO BUILD HUMAN RESOURCE
For this reason, he emphasised, a memorandum of understanding to be signed between Jamaica and the Southeast Asian country to strengthen each nation’s human resource capacity is of great significance.
“The strategy for the human resource improvement is to invest in our training capabilities so that if they want people to get trained, they can send people here to be trained so that we create a training industry here in Jamaica as well,” Holness said.
In his address, Dr Teodoro Herbosa, secretary of health for the Republic of The Philippines, highlighted that the country has long been one of the world’s leading exporters of healthcare talent, annually contributing over 100,000 nurses and medical professionals to foreign healthcare systems.
However, he noted that The Philippines recognises the importance of this migration both from an economic and social perspective, highlighting how it helps address financial challenges for families and strengthens the country’s financial reserves.
In response, it became the first country to create the Department of Migrant Workers, which formalised and institutionalised the process of sending workers abroad and protecting health workers’ rights.
Additionally, he said the country has, among other things, developed healthcare programmes, created healthcare scholarships, and a National Health Workforce Support System to address local health workforce demands and manage local distribution issues.
Herbosa noted that the partnership between Jamaica and The Philippines presents an opportunity to transform shared challenges into collective action.
“Together, we can explore innovative and collaborative strategies to strengthen health workforce capacity, exchange knowledge and technical expertise on human capital development and systems strengthening, and promote decent work for health workers between our countries. This can serve as the foundation for our pursuit of universal healthcare and sustainable development,” he said.
Declaring that the “world as we know it is changing”, Holness said collaboration and initiatives to improve Jamaica’s human resource capacity are timely.
“We are not going to just lay down while these changes are happening in the world, and we are looking at our talent. We are going to push back,” he said.