Healthcare Leaders Get Professional Certification

Some 37 healthcare leaders from across Jamaica’s four regional health authorities have successfully completed a professional leadership training programme under a collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica.

The graduates were awarded their Professional Certification in Healthcare Administration and Leadership during a graduation ceremony held at RIU Hotel in Mammee Bay, St. Ann, on Thursday, July 28.

They include chief executive officers, senior medical officers, medical officers of health, directors of nursing services, chief public health professionals, parish managers and more from the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA), North East Regional Health Authority (NERHA), Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA) and Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA).

Having completed the six-month training course conducted virtually by Utech’s College of Health Science, they are now poised to strengthen the managerial and leadership administration across the nation’s healthcare system.

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, who attended the graduation ceremony, said that the programme is timely, coming at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged traditional leadership in public healthcare.

As such, he said: “We must create leaders who recognise that we have to apply ourselves to the challenges that we face.

“I am not suggesting that we compromise our standards and place patients at risk, but what used to be the case last week may not be the case this week. There are many variables within this sphere of administering leadership and management that calls now for transformational leadership in thinking and application,” he pointed out.

He charged the healthcare leaders to become change agents who are going to enable greater organisational effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of public healthcare services.

For his part, Acting Deputy President of UTech, Jamaica, Dr. Haldane Johnson, said that the institution shares in the Government’s mission to meet the needs for human capacity development in the health sector as well as other areas of professional development in the country.

“The need for transformational leadership, creative thinking and innovation is evident now more than ever as our country seeks to rebound and rebuild from the economic and social disruption to normal ways of life brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two-plus years,” he pointed out.