Nurses have specific challenges they need to deal with, says Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
While speaking to members of the Fiji Nursing Association in Sigatoka, he said one of the main challenges was customer service in a modern society and nurses moving into the private sector.
“Facebook nowadays is everywhere,” he said.
“You can be sitting there in your area of work and some member of the public who may not be happy with you can start recording you and they put it up on Facebook may be out of context.”
He also talked about the move to work with private suppliers.
“Now in Fiji some of you are old enough to know there was no such thing as private hospitals.
“Everything was in the public health system.
“Now we have private hospitals.
“So nurses will be moving around and wages will be paid at a higher rate.
“This is precisely why in the budget announcement we have increased the quota for nurses to get TELS from $100 to $350.
“We agree that there is a movement of nurses.”
He added that Government would also be reviewing its efforts to assist in the upskilling of current registered nurses.
