KUCHING: Despite not enough hospitals or healthcare centres in Sarawak to absorb trained nurses, unemployment problem is solved, thanks to the ad-hoc committee comprising Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) Youth, Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) and Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI).
Balai Ringin Assemblyman Snowdan Lawan said many trained but unemployed nurses were from the Dayak community and they were good in what they were doing as they had been exposed to caring for the elderly since young.
“They are friendlier because they stay in a communal environment and not nucleus family environment like in big towns,” he said.
The committee work together to help find this group of diploma graduates while at the same time, looking for potential SPM leavers to learn healthcare skills while working.
“Fortunately, ECON Healthcare Group, is looking for trainable nurses or nurses with diplomas to be absorbed, employed and retrained or trained from basic for their healthcare outfits. The group had started a medicare centre and nursing home recently in Johor and there was a shortage of nurses.
ECON is a body that is stringent with the quality of services it provides to the patients and has won 17 awards from the Singapore Health Quality Services. After vetting through the Dayak nurses, 11 out of 19 applicants were immediately given employment. This was also due to a number of them able to speak English and Mandarin as well as Bahasa Malaysia.
“Although the employment drive was a short one, it was successful and as a result, the commitee would like to hold another employment drive, inviting all unemployed nurses with diplomas or SPM school leavers, who are interested to become assistant nurses, to apply,” said Snowdan.
He said compared to youths in Peninsular Malaysia, youths in Sarawak were naturally better equipped in terms of language and naturally more caring as they had been exposed to taking care of elderly people in their own homes.
“To us, this is an asset that we can exploit. Although the employment drive was a short one, it gave us a glimpse of what Sarawakians could potentially turned into given the right training and right match for employment,” pointed out Snowdan.
He said there was a world wide shortage of specialist nurses and nurses with diploma could be further trained to become specialist nurses in areas such as cardiac nursing, critical care nursing, dialysis nursing, emergency and trauma nursing, geriatric nursing, dementia nursing, medical-surgical nursing, midwifery, neonatal nursing, obstetrical nursing, orthopaedic nursing, pediatric nursing, wound care – ostomy nursing, nursing informatics, nursing management or even case management nurse.
This, he pointed out, would be in tandem with the state government’s objective to make Sarawak an International Medical Hub in the region.
“One of the important criteria is to have support in terms of manpower and this might be a good beginning,” said Snowdan.
