Despite the challenge the country faced on Monday, when public sector nurses chose to stage a sick out, Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands has  acknowledged that nurses have been under appreciated, and that they should be shown that their services are valuable. 

Dr. Sands was responding to questions of whether the group put together to address nurses leaving had come up with a solution.

“As you would have known, I have tried to suggest to the Bahamian public that as a group,  nurses play a very important role in the delivery of health care.

“And as such,  I agree that they have been under appreciated and that we need to show them as a country that their service is valued. 

“I think that we need to look for the medium and long term and that we put this aside and try to make this country an even better place. And to make our health care system even better,” Dr. Sands said. 

More importantly however, Dr. Sands said that  in order to achieve a better health care system, Bahamians must become more confident that they are independent, or the country will continue to walk the same road.

“We ought to be saying to our young people, men and women, that there are wonderful careers in health care, in nursing in occupational therapy, in physical therapy, in radiography.

“To achieve self-sufficiency, ought to be the goal of a nation which is almost 50 years old. 

“At what point are we going to become self-sufficient?

“So, while I appreciate the people from the Philippines, Jamaica and Barbados and Africa and India, we need Bahamians, Bahamian young people to be doctors and nurses and health care professionals across our entire system; that means we have finally matured as a country,” Dr, Sands said. 

Dr Sands in February told reporters that a high-level panel had been convened to look into the root causes of exactly why Bahamian nurses are leaving the country in the hundreds.