We’re ready to welcome Ghanaian nurses — Barbados Prime Minister

The visiting Prime Minister of Barbados, Ms Mia Amor Mottley, says her country is ready to receive the first batch of Ghanaian nurses in January next year.

Following an appeal from Barbados for nurses from Ghana, a process to recruit 120 nurses to fill up vacancies in the health sector in the Caribbean country is currently underway in Accra.

Ms Mottley said the Ghanaian nurses would help address the acute shortage of nurses in her country, adding that officials from her country had been in Ghana in the last 10 days and would complete the recruitment process by next week.

The Prime Minister, who is the first female to assume that position in her country, stated this at a joint press conference with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during a three-day official visit to Ghana.

She commended President Akufo-Addo for the quick response to the Barbados request.

Foreign ministers

The Foreign Ministers of Ghana and Barbados, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey and Dr Jerome Walcott, respectively, signed two agreements on Health and International Sister Ports Cooperation between the Tema Port and the Bridge Port of Barbados.

After an initial reception at the Jubilee House and interaction with President Akufo-Addo and some ministers of state, the Barbadian Prime Minister and the President addressed the media and later attended a lunch in her honour at the Jubilee House.

Prime Minister Mottley had already visited the Cape Coast Castle, the burial grounds of African ancestors at Assin Manso and also been to the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and would attend the Damba Festival in Tamale today.

President Akufo-Addo invited the Barbados Prime Minister to visit Ghana during his tour of the Caribbean recently as part of moves to attract people of African descent and others to attend the Year of Return which marks the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of the first slave from the shores of the Gold Coast.

Nurses

Hundreds of nurses applied for the job last month out of which 150 were shortlisted and have been interviewed. From that list, 120 specialist nurses who possess a minimum of three years’ experience and have specialities in critical care, cardiac catheterisation, emergency room, operating theatre and ophthalmology would be selected.

Prime Minister Mottley said the importation of the nurses was one of the most important things for the Barbadian government, stressing that “we have to complete this in order to guarantee the quality health care we want for our citizens.”

She said the shortage of nurses in Barbados could take a number of years to fill, especially due to the number of years it took to train them, adding that “I raised it with the President and he immediately, in a press conference in Barbados, announced that Ghana would assist and provide the nurses.”

Relations

She said as leaders of the two countries, the only way their actions would have true meaning for their citizens was when they took it upon themselves to consummate the relationship.

Ms Mottley said they should do that by trading and working together for the development of their two peoples because “we eat the same food, wear similar clothes, like the same music, have similar personality and sense of humour. We are the same because we are family.”

UN

Reacting to a call by President Akufo-Addo for support to ensure that Africa was given better recognition, position and a say in the scheme of things in the United Nations through revival of reforms in the United Nations, Prime Minister Mottley said the call was urgent and in the right direction.

She said it was more urgent, especially in an era where countries that did not contribute to the greenhouse emissions, such as Barbados, were rather bearing the brunt of global warming in the form of devastating hurricanes that were destroying the country.

President

President Akufo-Addo said it was high time the two countries commenced the building of bridges across the Atlantic with their kith and kin in the Americas and the Caribbean.

President Akufo-Addo assured Prime Minister Mottley that Ghana would continue to collaborate with Barbados on bilateral and multilateral levels in finding solutions to challenges such as widespread poverty, irregular migration, insecurity and human rights violations, terrorism and violent extremism, human and drug trafficking, piracy as well as climate change.

To reinforce the fact that the people of Barbados were related to Ghanaians, President Akufo-Addo quoted the Jamaican Reggae singer Peter Macintosh (Tosh) and said he did not care about where they came from because, “As long as you're a black man you are an African.”

UN reforms

President Akufo-Addo called for the support of Barbados and the other countries of the Caribbean to correct the long-standing injustice that the current structure and composition of the UN Security Council presented for the nations of Africa.