Business View Caribbean | Feb 2019

JAMAICAWILL NEED 98,000 HEALTH AND EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS BY 2040 J amaica will need approximately 49,000 teachers, 12,000 doctors, and 37,000 nurses by the year 2040. This is what “Education and Health: The Sectors of the Future?,” the second issue of the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) “The Future of Work in Latin America and the Caribbean” series says in its projection of the demand for social sector professionals in 24 countries in the region. “Our study shows that, even in the framework of the fourth industrial revolution, we can expect the number of teachers, doctors, and nurses in Latin America and the Caribbean to continue growing at great speed,” explained Marcelo Ca- brol, Manager of the IDB Social Sector. “Our methodology allows us to know that, for ex- ample, a third of the teachers that will be needed OPENING LINES Merle Donaldson (third left), director and chairman of the Health Committee of CHASE Fund, looking at the paediatric dialysis supplies with (from left) Keneisha Smell-Patterson; Sister Andrea Mignott; Dr Adedamola Soyiobo, consultant physician and nephrologist at the University Hospital West Indies; Dr Maolynne Miller, founder of Jamaica Kidney Kids Foundation; and Nurse Barbara Griffiths at the CHASE Fund handover of dialysis supplies to the UHWI late last year. 6