Jamaican nurses' perception of their work experiences with foreign nurses

OBJECTIVE: To explore the perception of Jamaican nurses regarding their work experiences with nurses from Cuba, Nigeria and Ghana. METHOD: A 24-item pretested self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 30 Registered Nurses working with foreign nurses on five selected wards at Kingston Public Hospital. Twenty-three nurses (77 percent) completed the questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS Version 6.13. RESULTS: In terms of clinical performance, ability to communicate with patients and staff and pleasant work attitude, the nurse rated those from Ghana highest, followed by Nigerians and Cubans (p<0.001). The majority (91 percent) of the respondents were concerned about the cost of recruiting foreign nurses, some of whom they perceived to be lazy and incompetent. They felt that Jamaican nurses should be treated better by improving salaries and benefits. Sixty-one per cent suggested that the benefits to foreign nurses surpassed their own. CONCLUSION: Nurses from Ghana were the most popular with Jamaican nurses. The cost of improving salaries and benefits to retain Jamaican nurses should be weighed against the cost of recruiting foreign nurses to work in Jamaica.(Au)

Increase of malaria among migrants in Amsterdam-Zuidoost

In a general practice in Amsterdam SouthEast in 1998 a delayed first attack of Plasmodium ovale infection was diagnosed in a 13-year-old-girl from Ghana, malaria tropica with a low parasitaemia index in a 43-year-old Ghanaian man and a 8-year-old Ghanaian girl, and a Plasmodium vivax infection in a 44-year-old Surinam woman. The Ghanaian patients had visited their native country, the Surinam woman had contracted the infection during a visit to India. All patients responded well to antimalaria medication. These patients were among a total of 6 patients of non-Dutch origin diagnosed with malaria in 1998 in this general practice. Four patients had not taken any prophylactic drug and two had not used the drugs properly. A relative increase of malaria in immigrants has been seen in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe in recent years. Underestimation of the risks and lack of knowledge of malaria and of the changing epidemiology make people of ethnic minorities travel without taking appropriate precautions. New, creative ways of communication and information will have to be explored to reach these migrant communities. (AU)

Perceptions of veterinarians regarding privatization of veterinary services delivery in Ghana and Jamaica

There are on-going reforms in the delivery of veterinary services in many developing countries, with privatization of certain veterinary activities as one of the approaches. In Jamaica, with the support of veterinarians, clinical aspects of veterinary services were privatized in 1992. In contrast, Ghanian veterinarians are generally wary of the government's on-going privatization process. The objective of this study is to find out if perceptions of the veterinarians from these two countries on certain issues of privatization were sufficiently different to explain the willingness or reluctance to go into private practice. The response proportions for predominantly self-administered questionnaires were 83 percent (121/145) and 92 percent (35/38) for Ghana and Jamaica, respectively. There was a very good (92 percent) agreement in the perceptions of veterinarians in Ghana and Jamaica on a battery of 24 responses pertaining to privatization of veterinary services. Generally, the perceptions of the veterinarians in Ghana and Jamaica were similar even though the predominant delivery systems for animal health services were different. Therefore, reasons other than those examined in this study may explain the differences in willingness.(Au)

Comparison of HHV-6 antibody titers in West Africa and the Caribbean

Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) infections seems to be ubiquitous early in life, but antibody responses vary by geographic area. We compared HHV-6 antibody titer in 123 West African and 122 Caribbean serum samples. A quantitative immunofluorescence assay (IFA) using antigens derived from an HSB-2 cell line was used to test for IgG HHV-6 (GS strain) antibodies. The prevalence of HHV-6 antibodies was high (98 percent) in both sites. African samples had a significantly higher geometric mean titer (GMT: 697) than did Caribbean samples (GMT: 99). There was no difference between males (GMT: 260) and females (GMT: 270) overall. Children up to and including 9 years old had significantly higher titers (GMT: 483) than did all others (GMT: 237), and female children tended to have higher titers than did male children. In both areas there was a trend towards highest titer at younger age, followed by a decrease in titer in the oldest age group. Environmental and host factors may explain these geographic differences in antibody responses between two groups of African origin. (AU)