We need our people to come back home — Health Minister
There has been a call for health professionals originally from the BVI to return home to assist in the current COVID-19 crisis.
Health Minister Carvin Malone made the call while appearing on the Virgin Islands Party‘s (VIP) Let’s Talk radio programme earlier this week.
“We need persons trained and we need our people to basically come back home so we have to look in terms of creating a programme,” Minister Malone said.
He said the territory will continue to be challenged especially since the United States of America is able to offer greater salaries and more incentives for healthcare workers.
“We have come to know that taking up your salaries alone would not do it because America prints money so they can always up yours another 20, 30, 40 percent,” Malone said.
Malone also made a special appeal for other nationals to come to the territory to provide healthcare services.
“The BVI is not a bad place to live, it’s a great place to live so we will have to work with all of the disciplines, we will have to work with the Ministry of Education, we will have to work with the Ministry of Labour and Immigration to make sure that we can offer incentives in terms of people who would like to put their roots here, offer their services here and they are not here just because they have some US dollars to make, but they’re here because they would like to make here, the Virgin Islands, their home,” he said.
He added that it is always a terrible thing when officials are looking afield to bring people in while persons here are not offered the same incentives.
“So we have to make sure that we get our own people who are here to feel as if they are a full part of the medical system. We have to get our people here to feel as if, well look, ‘I feel at home’,” he added.
“It’s not only strangers who should feel at home, but people from the BVI should feel at home also,” the minister said.
Malone stated that robots cannot replace a number of disciplines within the health industry and said this is where the territory continues to be challenged in terms of maintaining and keeping its people.
He said officials need to do whatever they can to encourage people to be trained so they are working with the Education Department and the local H Lavity Stoutt Community College to have the nursing programme returned along with other initiatives to achieve this outcome.
“We need persons trained and we need our people to basically come back home so we have to look in terms of creating a programme,” Minister Malone said.
He said the territory will continue to be challenged especially since the United States of America is able to offer greater salaries and more incentives for healthcare workers.
“We have come to know that taking up your salaries alone would not do it because America prints money so they can always up yours another 20, 30, 40 percent,” Malone said.
Malone also made a special appeal for other nationals to come to the territory to provide healthcare services.
“The BVI is not a bad place to live, it’s a great place to live so we will have to work with all of the disciplines, we will have to work with the Ministry of Education, we will have to work with the Ministry of Labour and Immigration to make sure that we can offer incentives in terms of people who would like to put their roots here, offer their services here and they are not here just because they have some US dollars to make, but they’re here because they would like to make here, the Virgin Islands, their home,” he said.
He added that it is always a terrible thing when officials are looking afield to bring people in while persons here are not offered the same incentives.
“So we have to make sure that we get our own people who are here to feel as if they are a full part of the medical system. We have to get our people here to feel as if, well look, ‘I feel at home’,” he added.
“It’s not only strangers who should feel at home, but people from the BVI should feel at home also,” the minister said.
Malone stated that robots cannot replace a number of disciplines within the health industry and said this is where the territory continues to be challenged in terms of maintaining and keeping its people.
He said officials need to do whatever they can to encourage people to be trained so they are working with the Education Department and the local H Lavity Stoutt Community College to have the nursing programme returned along with other initiatives to achieve this outcome.
