‘Support Nurses’ Director Appeals
By Kisean Joseph kisean.joseph@antiguaobserver.com Nurses in Antigua and Barbuda are under pressure, and one of the sector’s most senior voices is calling on the nation to do more for the people keeping it healthy. This year’s Nurses Week theme, “Our Nurses, Our Future: Empowered Nurses Save Lives” is not just a slogan, it’s a challenge. […]
Black News 
By Kisean Joseph
kisean.joseph@antiguaobserver.com
Nurses in Antigua and Barbuda are under pressure, and one of the sector’s most senior voices is calling on the nation to do more for the people keeping it healthy.
This year’s Nurses Week theme, “Our Nurses, Our Future: Empowered Nurses Save Lives” is not just a slogan, it’s a challenge. However, for Jacqueline JnoBaptiste, the Director of Nursing at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre (SLBMC), it captures everything the profession has been saying for years but has not yet been heard on clearly enough.
JnoBaptiste has spent 42 years in nursing, long enough to have helped deliver, treat, and care for multiple generations of Antiguans and Barbudans. She entered the profession in 1984, not as a first choice, but as a redirection shaped by family. The oldest girl among five children, she grew up bathing siblings, shopping for the household, and caring for aging grandparents. Her father saw what she could not yet name.
“My first choice was to be a mechanic, but my father would not hear of it,” she said. “So I chose nursing because that side of me was there. And from that point in time until now, I have remained a nurse all these years, and it’s something that I love very much.”
However, the profession she entered bore little resemblance to the one practiced today. Jnobaptiste recalled testing urine samples over a Bunsen burner, a method long replaced by the modern dipstick. Since then, the advances have been sweeping: digital monitoring, expanded university pathways, and a broadening of the profession into specializations, including nurse practitioner, psychologist, and dietitian roles.
But progress has not neutralized pressure. The sector continues to grapple with a nursing shortage that JnoBaptiste acknowledges has had a direct impact on quality of care. A cohort of nurses recruited from Ghana has recently helped ease the strain at the SLBMC, a development she described as significant.
“One of the greatest challenges I’ve experienced is our nursing shortage, which has affected the quality of care that we put out,” she said. “But recently we received some nurses from Ghana who have come and assisted us quite greatly, so that we can continue to give care to the people of Antigua and Barbuda.”
The theme “Empowered Nurses Save Lives” speaks directly to what she said the sector needs most: investment in continuing education, structured attachments to regional and international hospitals, and a cultural shift in how nurses are valued beyond the hospital walls. An empowered nurse, she argued, is one who is trained, supported, and recognized, and right now, too many are none of those things.
“Sometimes, we take the nurses for granted,” she said. “Recognizing the nurses, not just in the hospital, but in the community, is very important, because there are times when they feel they are neglected, times when they feel they are not supported. We want to say to them, you are not alone.”
The week’s observance, coordinated with the Antigua and Barbuda Nurses Association, includes educational sessions, spa days, and a talent night. On Friday, JnoBaptiste will present the inaugural Matron’s Award, recognizing outstanding performers across four categories: Evening and Night Supervisor, Departmental Manager, Unit Manager, and Shift Supervisor.
She closed with a message to every nurse serving across the twin-island state.
“This Nurses Week, may it inspire and remind us how profound an impact our work has on empowering one another as we build healthier futures together,” she said. “May God continue to bless and keep you as you continue to demonstrate your unwavering commitment to providing quality patient care.”
Forty-two years on, JnoBaptiste’s conviction has not changed: nursing is a noble profession, and the people who practice it deserve to be treated as such.
