EDITOR’S NOTE: When President Barack Obama visited Jamaica in 2015, He had an informal discussion with the sitting Minister of Education in which he is reported as saying: “There is going to be a shortage of tens of thousands of nurses in the United States”. Then, he suggested: “Why don’t you train more nurses and send them to work with us?”.

In this edition, #HealthCaribbean takes a look at Nursing in the Caribbean. Two locations are considered, namely: Jamaica and Guyana. But, one problem is common throughout the Caribbean: we train nurses only for them to migrate to greener pastures. Three of the five articles are on Jamaica; the remaining two on Guyana.

Our headline taken from Caribbean Life News reads: “Jamaican Nurse Educator In Vanguard Of Nursing Mentorship”. It tells the story of Jamaican-born Dr. Althea Mighten — senior director for Nursing Professional Development and Nursing Recruitment at New York University, Langone Orthopedic Hospital, and her involvement with the New York Black Nurses Association (NYBNA).

The other articles on Jamaica lead us to understand that nothing was done following that informal discussion with President Obama, and the situation has gotten worse. The articles on Guyana speak to the Caribbean’s oldest Nurses Association, and a human-interest story about, the University of Guyana’s Nursing valedictorian, Osiola Gilbert-Chilcott.

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