OECS acknowledges healthcare brain drain in region
Chaired by Minister for Health and Social Development, Hon Vincent. O. Wheatley (R9), he said the OECS Ministers of Health meeting delved into the pressing healthcare issues facing members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
Migration of healthcare workers
One such matter discussed during the sessions was the migration of health practitioners from OECS countries where Hon Wheatley acknowledged that the Virgin Islands is one of the beneficiaries of the migration.
Hon Wheatley further stated that the Council looked at different ways to share the expertise of healthcare practitioners among OECS member states.
"The question is now, how do we keep persons in the region so it would not be like St. Vincent and the Grenadines or St. Lucia is losing persons but instead they are sharing their expertise with somebody. That was one of the salient points we took away from the conference."
Hon Minister added that there need for deeper and wider collaboration among states in terms of what their needs are were the meetings explored the different expertise in each country and best practices from each nation.
Need to collaborate - Dr Wheatley
“I have learned so much from the other countries about how they tackle problems that exist here, all in the name of getting better healthcare for our people both primary and tertiary," the Minister added.
Director General of the OECS His Excellency, Dr. Didacus Jules echoed Hon Wheatley's point on the need for collaboration in the region and noted that most of the discussions at the two meetings centered on how the region can come together to better serve the people and improve healthcare.
“Whatever governments require that can be delivered more cost-effectively to them via pooling of the requirements across the OECS we can provide. It was a very important meeting because the back-to-back meetings allowed us to look at the needs of the health systems in the OECS and see how that can be aligned to real improvements in the quality of medical services available across the OECS,” Dr. Jules said.
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5 Responses to “OECS acknowledges healthcare brain drain in region”
So Mr Minister i challenge you to tell the public how many locals you have working at the Hospital that were trained in the US that are still working in the Healthcare and how much that had return to BVI but now gone back to the US. and what the real reason for the great exodus from the BVI but yet the expats that come hare are being treated as bottom scale workers cant save to to do what the BVI landers are doing in the US to support their families back home. thanks be for the now Premier to reduce the taxes on the already tax salaries at the Western Union and MoneyGram. and yet we cant see where that money going