Nurses must be willing to be deployed to rural areas, says the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Service, Nego Sisiolo.
“As we are always told, 80 percent of the population are rural dwellers. In ensuring that health services reach them, nurses must be willing to be deployed to those areas,” Mr Sisiolo told 137 nurses during a registration ceremony yesterday.
Nurses that were awarded yesterday. Photo: Eliza Kukutu/SIBC
The 137 are part one registered nurses and were awarded their Part Two Full registration certificates when marking the International Nurses Day 2022 yesterday.
Mr Sisiolo echoes this because there are reports of increasing hesitancy for postings to provinces.
Sisiolo encourages nurses to ensure that health service is delivered to the population.
“As the government of the day prioritizes service delivery to its people, you are expected to be obedient and submissive to authorities that you work under to strengthen service delivery to the people.”
Mr Sisiolo says the country needs to strengthen its health system and as such, the government need nurses to contribute to that strengthening process.
The public service permanent secretary congratulates the nurses for their achievement, and in satisfying the requirements of their internship program.
The nurses were awarded their certificates after successfully completing their Nurses Supervised Practice Program (SPP).
Mr. Sisiolo also highlighted the government’s attention on investments relating to the country’s health sector.
Nurses at the event yesterday
“In 2021, a total of 260 nursing submissions were facilitated for confirmation, promotions and incremental awards. Out of that, 87 (34%) was successfully processed. The rest are already approved by the Performance recognition committee of Ministry of Health and Medical services (MHMS) and currently being facilitated by the human resource department.
“As a government that cares for its citizens, DCGA has invested in the health sector human resources to ensure that health services are provided to the people with effectiveness and efficiency”.
He adds, the government through its employing Ministry has ensured that nursing capacity was boosted during the covid-19 pandemic.
“The need for nurses during this public health emergency was obvious, thus resulted in increased recruitments of nurses since 2020 where three groups with a total of 225 newly registered nurses were successfully recruited by the government through the Ministry of Public Service.
Sisiolo says MHMS also recruit frontliners on casual basis to support the response. Out of the 331 causal recruits, 270 are nurses. This immediate support was distributed to NRH, Honiara City Council, Guadalcanal Province, and the rest of the provinces.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sisiolo also confirmed that recruitment submissions for the recently registered nurses will complete in the coming week. This will bring the total number of recruited nurses since 2020 to 363.
Sisiolo also thanked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of the Australian Government for supporting the new registered nurses’ group with additional funding that enabled them to complete their hospital and rural health attachments.
The theme for the International Nurses Day 2022 is “Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health.”
By Eliza Kukutu
