Nearly 60 hired from Ministry of Health job fair — Tufton

Almost 60 people who participated in a two-day job fair hosted by the Ministry of Health in January have been offered employment, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton has disclosed.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet briefing this morning, Tufton noted that processing and interviewing are still ongoing.

“I think there is still some processing and interviews going on, sometimes these things take a while,” he said.

He pointed to his sectoral presentation document, which outlined that almost 10,000 people attended the two-day event; 2,087 applications were received, 340 applicants were invited for assessment, 294 shortlisted, and 124 interviews were done.

The fair, which was criticised as a major public relations stunt by the Opposition People’s National Party, was held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and aimed to fill around 600 vacancies across various departments, hospitals, health centres, and agencies.

During his presentation in Parliament yesterday, the Minister acknowledged that a pivot point to improving health services is filling the gaps that exist for healthcare workers.

“We have long had shortages of specialist nurses, specialist doctors and other critical support staff like radiologists and biomedical engineers. Our last count suggests a shortage of, for example, radiologists by more than 50 percent and a shortage of some 1,388 of specialist nurses, of various areas,” he said.

He added, “Two factors contribute to this; the increasing mobility of our skilled labour force, with the increasingly attractive offers to incentivise economic migration…Secondly, the Government’s health reform strategies which are seeing more posts and a greater demand for these specialised skill sets locally.”

He noted that it is imperative that the government fixes the human resources issue to better serve citizens.

“We have to be more aggressive in our push to right-size our HR policy for better service delivery,” he said.

“If Jamaicans are qualified and available, we will pursue this option as a priority. We also want to help locals who are willing and able to qualify for these posts,” he said.

He highlighted the launch of the Barry Wint Scholarships, which offered 600 awards, 536 of which have been taken up by students pursuing studies in various medical fields, with a commitment to return and serve in the public healthcare system.

“I am happy to announce that this week we will advertise another $500 million for scholarships in the print media and on the website of the Ministry of Health and Wellness for new applicants for the new year,” Tufton said.

-Sashana Small