ECS International

ECS International, ECSII, Healthcare

Nursing Shortage Impacting St. Lucia’s Healthcare System

The English-speaking Caribbean is in the midst of a crisis of shortages of nurses with an average vacancy rate of 42 percent. Low pay, poor career prospects, and lack of education opportunities are among the reasons nurses resign. Many of these nurses look outside the region for job opportunities in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and other countries.  It is estimated that 21,500 nurses trained in the region now work in Britain, Canada and the United States – that’s three times as many as those in their home countries.  Compounding the situation is the lack of resources to train nurses to fill the vacancies.  In addition, the demand for nurses exceeds their supply throughout the region: 3,300 or 30 percent of all positions in the sector were vacant at the time of the study.

Now St. Lucia is losing an average of two nurses a week to migration and the shortage is beginning to having a negative effect on the Ministry of Health’s ability to deliver primary and secondary  health services.  [Read more…]

Jamaica Recruits Cuban Health Professionals To Fill Public Health Jobs

Cuban doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals have been sharing their expertise at hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities in Jamaica since the 1970’s.  In 2010, Cuba established an Ophthalmology Centre on the campus of St. Joseph’s hospital in Kingston to treat Jamaican and other Caribbean nations with eye conditions which has been so successful that the eye care program was extended in 2015 for another three years.  In 2017, there were almost 200 Cuban health professionals working throughout Jamaica.

Now Jamaica’s public health system will be receiving more than 100 doctors and well over 200 nurses within the year all coming from Cuba as part of a long-standing relationship with the Cuban Government under the Technical Cooperation Agreement between Jamaica and Cuba and it is expected that this group will be strategically placed to strengthen Jamaica’s primary health care system.

[Read more…]

British Researchers Successfully Invented a Personal Pill for Prostate Cancer

The first personalised drug for prostate cancer is set to revolutionise treatment and extend the lives of thousands of men.  The drug (olaparib) is currently licensed to treat ovarian cancer could be a successful treatment for men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Currently in clinical trials, the pill is taken on a daily basis and uses the patient’s genetic make-up to target the tumour’s defences is said to work in 80 percent of men with certain genes.

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Gun Violence: A Global Public Health Epidemic

 

The gun violence crisis is not restricted to the United States which leads the developed world for mass shootings as recently last week in Virginia Beach and in 2018 at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.  However it is rare that mass shootings occur internationally and when it does occur it is usually related to terrorism as the cases in New Zealand and Bangladesh. Gun violence is a man made public health problem, and it is linked to an underlying set of social determinants found in other epidemics. Long term public disinvestment in education, housing, job training, and a lack of a social safety net, persistent structural racism and discrimination, lack of economic opportunity, poverty and gang violence are some of the factors that drive gun violence epidemic.

In 2016, more than 250,000 people worldwide died as a result of firearms, and half of all of those deaths came from six nations, Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala; which according to a study published in the journal JAMA these countries hold less than 10 percent of the world’s population. A major side effect of this crisis has been the mass migration of people fleeing from countries (Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela), that have major gun violence problems into adjacent countries like Colombia, Mexico and the United States creating more social and political upheaval.

Now it’s time to consider practical and effective ways to stem the gun violence epidemic that conceivably one day in the future there could be a world without guns.

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Another Caribbean Island Approves Medical Marijuana

Jamaica is leading the Caribbean by being the first to establish a commercial cannabis industry has opened the mythical ‘Pandora’s box’ as more Caribbean nations are quickly moving towards the decriminalization and establishing their own medical marijuana programs. The list of islands include: Antigua & Barbuda, Bermuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, Trinidad & Tobago and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Now the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Barbados is insisting that its recent decision to authorise medical marijuana products for use in Barbados was based solely on the best available scientific evidence from clinical studies.  The announcement was made by health minister Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic Wellness, who said the five medicinal marijuana drugs to be imported will be used only when traditional medication fails to give any relief for chronic pain, spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis, severe nausea and loss of appetite.

[Read more…]

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