Status of Situation 2020 (country: Saint Lucia)

- Advisory Committee (Prime Minister chairs this Committee) was activated in 2020 due to the pandemic. - Covid-19 Command Centre: contributes to the national response plan.

HRH planning and decisions on mobility, deployment and hiring was taken at the Advisory Committee.

A Covid-19 Preparedness and Response Committee of the MOH to put a plan to manage HRH during COVID-19. There was no confirmation that the committee made HRH projections to respond to the pandemic.

The country did not use a HIS to support HRH planning decisions during the pandemic.

The budget was increased to meet the obligations of the protocols instituted for covid-19.

There was a need to increase the number of the Port Health Workers to support the newly implemented protocols.

- There was temporary reassignment of PHC personnel to the secondary level and diversion of staff within the same institutions. - Respiratory clinics were adjusted and put to work around the island. Staff was reassigned from other areas.

Frontline workers were given duty free concessions on vehicles.

- Hiring new staff: Increasing human resource capacity at the port (nurses, environmental health officers) to increase surveillance capacity at ports of entry. - They considered to have MD, RN students, but it did not materialize. - Saint Lucia called for volunteers to work in the COVID-19 Hotline (311). They were trained on general information so they could assist the public. - They received support from the private sector, specifically communication companies that provided mobile phones to physicians who volunteered for tele-triage. - Private physicians joined the team to work in the public health facilities. - Cuba-Saint Lucia Bilateral Agreement: 113 Cuban doctors and nurses, biomedical engineers and epidemiologists: 100 nurses, 6 GPs, 3 internists, 2 biomedical engineers, 1 epidemiologist.

- Psychosocial support: MhGap training was introduced to the community medical team in effort to provide that type of support to the population. - Contact tracing, referral done by the Epidemiology Unit at the MoH: national epidemiologists, surveillance officers. If the need arises, they would train other personnel from other departments (physicians, nurses, environmental health officers) to support surveillance. - Saint Lucia is working in establishing District disaster committees with community members who will be trained to support surveillance activities at the community level (work in progress).

It guided the decisions made during the pandemic and allowed some HRH planning.

St. Lucia re-organized shifts. Health teams were reassigned to the covid-19 response.