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Stakeholders in developing CNMI’s nursing workforce meet
The CNMI Partners Investing in Nursing or CPIN was formed after a gathering of stakeholders involved in developing the nursing workforce of the CNMI for the 2019 transition at the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation yesterday.
The meeting was spearheaded by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Captain Cathy Wasem, RN, MN, Labor Secretary Edith DeLeon Guerrero, and Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Esther Muna. Also present in the meeting were some representatives from the education system and of the hospital’s offices.
According to Muna, there will be “continuous conversation” between the stakeholders in further addressing the issue of developing the local workforce when it comes to healthcare.
“The CNMI is strengthening the focus on healthcare. We want healthcare to be a priority,” Muna said.
Discussed in the meeting were the programs that are currently in place in the commonwealth regarding workforce development as well as how it is being used, including funding and support from the Workforce Investment Agency and scholarships like SHEFA.
Gap in students’ basic skills to be able to further their studies in the field of nursing was also mentioned.
“There are a lot of standards that need to be met. In a general sense, before we even get to the standards, we need to build upon the basic skills,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
The need to identify those who are really interested to be part of the healthcare workforce and having those students to focus on the said industry was also noted.
“We really need to start looking at how do we groom these students at an early onset to get them interested in the career,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
“The specific [step] is to take a look at what can all the stakeholders do and to focus on those students that are interested in a nursing career and to again invest in them and put them in a career ladder,” she added.
According to Muna, they will be doing outreach programs in the community.
“We will move in full force to do more outreach basically before the school starts,” Muna said.
