A FORMER nurse has spoken out on this week's decision to cut training requirements for nurses at Bermuda's hospitals, calling the plan "absolutely appalling".

The former King Edward VII Memorial Hospital nurse compared the decline of the island's health system to our failing Government schools, and called on the hospital to address its problems with "low morale, low standards and sloppiness" before implementing any new nursing programmes.

"It's absolutely appalling that they'd in any way think of putting nurses in the hospital without full qualifications," said the British-born registered nurse, who spoke to the Mid-Ocean News on the condition of anonymity.

"When I came to Bermuda in the 1970s, the quality of the island's health care system was high. All the people I worked with had to be state registered nurses, and it was encouraged that you came to the island with experience.

"Everybody in my unit was trained in the UK, bar one, who was trained in the US. I always felt the standard throughout the hospital was high. If people weren't trained in England, they were trained in Canada or the US."

She believes nursing should be treated no differently than other professions, with trainees completing a full, four-year degree course – as Bermudian nurses do under the current BHB-approved programme, splitting their time between Bermuda College and Hampton University in Virginia.

"In England it is part of a degree course, to bring it in line with other professions," she said.

"There has to be a standard, and a level of intelligence. Then you have to have experience. It's all about standards, experience and professionalism."

She believes experience overseas is crucial for Bermudian nurses if they are to understand the pressures of working in a busy hospital. She recommends a stint in a large hospital in the US, UK or Canada, allowing each Bermudian student nurse the opportunity to see first-hand the high standard of care expected of a trainee.

"You are taught how to behave as a professional," she said.

"They could improve this programme by sending nurses to a bigger country. Going down to the Caribbean doesn't work."

The nurse compared Bermuda's ailing healthcare programme to its failing education system.

"They've lowered the standard of education so that kids at CedarBridge aren't even being taught GCSEs," she said.

"We don't want this to translate to our health system. The low morale, low standards and sloppiness at KEMH are well known. It can ill afford to hire people with questionable standards.

"There are already concerns about some of these doctors from the Caribbean, and whether they have the requisite experience. Who are these people working there now, and what credentials to they have?"

She remembers being shocked by the high standards at KEMH in the 1970s relative to Bermuda's size, and believes the past decade has seen a terrible decline.

"When I first came, it was a shock to me," she said.

"I had always worked in big teaching hospitals. I remember thinking, 'We're stuck in the middle of the ocean but this is a good little hospital'. Most definitely, over the past ten or so years, things have changed. Everybody I've spoken to has been upset by experiences they've had at the hospital."