Martin Henry

Last Friday morning, the day after Michael Lee Chin donated $100 million to Northern Caribbean University for doubling its nursing programme, I was on the Breakfast Club alongside Rev. Devon Dick and Rev. Garnet Roper. And what were we discussing on air? 'Is the Church losing its relevance?' Well!

Billionaire Lee Chin, who has made the Forbes list of richest persons in the world, said he was making a sound investment in the donation to the NCU Nursing School, an investment which would deliver secure returns. Lee Chin is known to pick winners. That's how he became rich. And for this investment he has picked a church school and nursing, both of which tend to be cinderellas for 'investment'.

Tired questions

It is past time for the tired questions of the relevance of the Church and what it is doing to be laid to rest. What people really mean when they ask is, why doesn't the Church get crime down, get the economy up, and get rid of poverty and social ills? In short, why doesn't the Church fix society?

The Church has a powerful social ministry and has conducted itself reasonably well in Jamaica in this regard when the records are reasonably examined. But it must operate within the context of human free choice and of contending social forces, some of which are plain evil.

But its social ministry and obligations must not overshadow its spiritual mission of bringing people to Christ voluntarily and nurturing them for a kingdom to come. The Church can't just be a development and social welfare agency. And it certainly can't be the enforcer of public morals against the wishes of those who are not its members.

For someone who has made his money abroad, Mr. Lee Chin has been setting a powerful example of philanthropic investment at home. He joins people like the richer Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in the view that the real purpose of wealth is to do good in the world. Most personal fortunes get dissipated by the second or third generation following the wealth creators. Building monuments like the Hyacinth Chen School of Nursing lasts longer and does more.

Mr. Lee Chin is quite clear that he is investing in the export trade with his gift to NCU. The voices for training professionals for export are now few but they are powerful - and right. Lee Chin is joined by Aubyn Hill, who has himself spent most of his professional life abroad but has returned to contribute at home.

Increasing the supply of nurses

At the donation press conference last Wednesday, Mr. Lee Chin spoke of increasing the supply of nurses who will migrate to work abroad while also improving nursing at home. The national government health care sector now needs to double its cadre of nurses from the current badly paid and demoralised 2,000 to at least 4,000 to just begin to be adequately staffed.

The scandalous pay and conditions problems must be addressed in order to retain more of the good Jamaican nurses, recognised all over the world, in our own health services.

Deliberately training for export is only belatedly acknowledging the status quo, formalising the process and seeking, sensibly, to capitalise on its benefits. The Jamaican economy has never been able to absorb the professional output of its own education system. Migration has provided opportunities abroad. And Lee Chin knows from where he shrewdly sits that nursing and other allied health care professions are among the fastest growing in the developed world. Remittances flow back. People retire back home with money in their pockets. And if the Government plays its diaspora cards right many other flow-back benefits can be had from Jamaicans abroad.

God bless you, Michael Lee Chin.

Martin Henry is a communications specialist.