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Minister of Health, Donville Inniss, addressing participants in the training workshop. At right are Prinicpal of the BCC, Dr. Gladstone Best and Permanent Secretary, Ronald Fitt.
(A. Miller/BGIS)
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A collaborative effort involving the Health Ministry, the Barbados Community College (BCC) and the Accident and Emergency Department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital that has seen over 56 health professionals trained has been praised.

The commendation came yesterday as Minister of Health, Donville Inniss, addressed the closing ceremony at his Ministry’s headquarters, the Frank Walcott Building, for the Urgent Care/ Triage Training and the Train The Trainers courses. ??

In lauding the BCC, Mr. Inniss noted that the competency-based curriculum was approved by the College’s Academic Board in March 2010 and their assistance saw the evaluation of the curriculum for standards, quality assurance and accreditation purposes. He added that formal training was then commenced for two cohorts of the Ministry of Health’s professionals, where a total of 28 participants were trained as trainers. The BCC, he stated would provide certification for the courses.

Mr. Inniss maintained: "Having staff certified in urgent care and the associated health technology will strengthen the institutional capacity of the Ministry to deliver more efficient primary care services that can lead to polyclinics becoming the entry point to the health care system, in a very sustainable and cost effective manner."

It was also noted that training and certification could "enhance recognition and acceptance of the nurses as valuable human capital in clinical medicine and lead to increased customer satisfaction for services provided at our polyclinics". And, the Health Minister pointed out that the collaborative response to training represented his Ministry’s commitment to capacity building, and improving the standards of health care and service delivery and was in the interest of promoting and protecting the health of our population.

Meanwhile, Principal of the BCC, Dr. Gladstone Best, said the Trainer of Trainers workshop was particularly important because it dealt with the persons who were responsible for training others.

"Learning is fundamental to continuing education. Lifelong learning is about learning how to learn and teaching people how to be able to deliver [their programmes]," he stressed, while stating that the programme was about "enhancing the capacity of the trainers to design, facilitate, assess and evaluate training using primarily competence-based approaches".

It was also pointed out that the agreed focus of this approach was "much in keeping with the strategic direction of the national human resource plan".

The Ministry of Health allocated approximately $300,000 to the project, with $83,000 going to training and $217,000 towards the purchase of medical equipment and accessories.

jgill@barbados.gov.bb

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