KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC -The Jamaica government said Monday that it expects more than 600 jobs to be available when it hosts the two-day Health & Wellness Career Expo & Employment, which gets underway on Wednesday.
The event, “A Career in Health: Roadmap to Success,” is being organized by the Ministry of Health & Wellness in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information. It will be held at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.
The ministry said the expo and job fair respond to prevailing challenges to human resources in health, including the limited availability of professionals in some specialist areas, migration, and competition from overseas recruiters.
“This event will progress Jamaica’s journey to ‘ensuring human resources for health in sufficient number and competencies, aligned to the model of care and committed to the mission’ to safeguard the best possible health outcomes for all,” said Health and Wellness Minister, Dr. Christopher Tufton.
“As a Ministry of Health and Wellness, we are committed to getting ahead of the human resources for health challenges. The scale of this event and its prioritization of the needs of students, career changers, jobseekers, and others curious to find out what it takes to succeed in public health indicates that,” he added.
The ministry said that the two-day event allows members of the public to vie for more than 600 job vacancies islandwide. It noted that all categories of workers are required, from records and research officers to monitoring and evaluation officers, drivers, office attendants and accountants, managers and directors in program management, doctors, nurses, psychologists, health informatics pros, etc.
It said that in addition to the job opportunities, the event will showcase the range of career options and the different professional groups in health. Attendees will also benefit from enrichment sessions that feature, among other things, resume writing and how to finance a career in health.
The ministry said that participants will also be exposed to the Dr. Barrington Wint Scholarship, which provides up to one million Jamaican dollars (One Jamaican dollar = US$0.008 cents) per recipient for up to five years.
Wint is a former chief medical officer, and the scholarship is open to Jamaicans pursuing health studies.
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