And the pressure on the hospital is only amplified with the nurse shortage. As we told you yesterday, the Filipino nurses are leaving the hospital and the Cuban brigade left some months ago. But Dr Sosa explained that they've been able to recruit some more nurses to fill the gap.
Dr. Andre Sosa - Chairman, KHMH
"I know that we raised the alarm several months ago about the shortage of nurses at the KHMH. Since then we embarked on an effort to recruit more nurses, I'm happy to say that we have been able to increase the compliment of nurses significantly through the cooperation of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, we were able to benefit by receiving the vase majority of the graduating nurses from UB graduating class. Additionally to that, we have been aggressively recruiting nurses from the districts and we have been able to get up our numbers in the COVID ward, we now have close to 40 nurses available to help man the COVID ward. Our compliment of nurses on the other wards remain pretty much the same. Certainly we need more nurses and that is an issue that has to be managed in the medium to long term. I've also been assured that there is a contingent from Cuba which includes doctors and nurses who are already in country and are in the observation phase, I think they are in quarantine. Once they emerge from their quarantine, they will help to bolster the effort, contingencies are there and they are being implemented"
