Chef cooks up career change in patient care

On the brink of the pandemic, Edward Daley’s intuition told him to leave his job as a chef overseas, return home, and seek a new career that gave him a sense of purpose.

The 34-year-old, who has been a chef for a decade, obeyed his inner voice.

At first, he thought his new calling was entrepreneurship in Jamaica, causing him to start helping a relative with a business. Soon, COVID-19 restrictions made those operations stagnant.

While riding out the storm, a friend overseas told him about a new training programme, undertaken by Strategic Management & Training Consultants Limited, for Jamaicans to become certified patient-care technicians (PCTs) or personal support workers for vacancies in Canada.

He successfully pitched the idea to his cousin but decided to tag along to the job fair and registration around 36 weeks ago. Little did he know that the universe had other plans for him and he was actually being aligned for his own new purpose in the medical field.

“On the whim, to be honest, my cousin was iffy about it, and I went with him just to kind of give him moral support, and I just told him, ‘If you sign up, I’ll sign up with you’, just on a whim, and it just so happen that he didn’t have the minimum qualification requirements, but I did, and I said, ‘I’ll do the programme and then I will help mentor you and you will sign up for the next programme’,” Daley, who was named the Most Improved Student of the programme last month, told The Gleaner.

Not only did the training give Daley a new perspective on life, but it will soon provide him with a direct job in Canada – where thousands of Jamaicans are aspiring to migrate to – helping the sick, elderly, and shut-in, in a matter of weeks to come, alongside all other 24 participants, who have been promised jobs.

It’s a 180-degree turn for Daley, who worked behind the scenes in the kitchen and didn’t always see the smiles of affirmation that came with every meal. His new role is far more personal.

“Here, you’re interacting with somebody who could be on death’s door at any point in time. It could be their last moment. It could be the last person that they interact with, so you are required to make their every moment count, from the simplest thing that they can’t do, like feeding themselves, to a complicated procedure,” Daley, who is excited about the new career he will soon start in Canada, said.

He told The Gleaner that training for his new career path was a little overwhelming at first. But he drew on the tenets 0f customer service he learnt in hospitality postings such as at Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston and New Jersey in the United States.

Daley previously attended the University of Technology and received his bachelor’s degree in hospitality and tourism management in 2008.

As a high-schooler at Jamaica College, he was an art major - a field he thought he would have pursued, following in the footsteps of his grandfather whose work can be viewed at the National Museum Jamaica.

He told The Gleaner that the pressure point for him to change careers dawned on him at age 28.

The COVID-19 fallout finally convinced him that change was inevitable.

Now, Daley, who grew up in Standpipe and Hope Pastures, said he is ready for his new life in Canada.

After enrolling in SMTC Career Institute – a privately owned Allied Health Care training facility that specialises in the training of PCTs and nursing assistants, and the first international member of the National Association of Career Colleges of Canada in March 2021 – he is now armed with on-the-job training from various public health facilities in Jamaica, where he interacted with patients and other healthcare workers.

Daley, along with 23 other graduates, pursued 336 hours of intensive and practicum training in teaching and specialist hospitals, long-term facilities, and assisted living in Jamaica.

The course of study received by the graduates included basic nursing skills, understanding the US health systems, gerontology, psychology, and phlebotomy skills.

Now that he is on the cusp of working as a patient-care technician, Daley is looking forward to a life of service.

And he isn’t bothered by the stereotype of patient-care technicians traditionally being women.

“Most jobs nowadays can be done by either sex,” Daley said.

He and his job-ready classmates received their certificates at a ceremony held at the Mona Ageing and Wellness Centre on June 21.

Beverley Dinham-Spencer, principal and director of the institute, said this batch of students received training from the United States and Canada.

“We are so proud of our students and their achievements and the positive feedback that we receive when they complete their practicum training in specialist hospitals and assisted living in Jamaica,” said Dinham-Spencer.

“Some of them are even offered permanent jobs in these facilities and are seen as the perfect fit for a career which calls for not just skills, but a deep sense of compassion and empathy for patients and clients under their care,” she added.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com