Senior Reporter
Nurses came out in their hundreds yesterday to demand an increase in salaries, overtime rates comparable to other workers and to send a message to the Government that they have had enough.
Leading the charge was Trinidad and Tobago National Nursing Association president Idi Stuart. The nurses gathered at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, marched to the Ministry of Health head office on Charlotte Street, then gathering on the Brian Lara Promenade, opposite the Ministry of Finance on Independence Square.
The protest was the largest by workers since Government took office last year. And nurses said they want to hear from the Government, or else.
“We know they are meeting in Parliament today, so we expect if this doesn’t force him (Health Minister Lackram Bodoe) to make a statement, a clear decisive statement on when healthcare workers will receive a salary increase, then we may have to escalate and we really don’t want to escalate,” Idi said.
“We are hearing all manner of things that is going on right now within the health care system today, and we really would not want a repeat of that in the not-too-distant future. So, for their sake, for the patient’s sake, please let us know what is going on with our salary increases.”
While nurses from all regional health authorities, including Tobago, were present, there were no reports of patient care neglect at health facilities across the country.
Secretary of the Division of Health and Wellness Dr Faith Brebnor, in a media release, said the Tobago Regional Health Authority remained unaffected by the protest activity and the authority remained committed to quality health care for all our patients.
Guardian Media called and messaged North Central Regional Health Authority chairman Dr Tim Gopeesingh for comment on the protest, but up to press time there was no response.
Yesterday’s protest was precipitated by an NCRHA decision to reduce nurses’ overtime hourly rates, known as pool, from $75 hourly to $60 hourly. Addressing the nurses outside the Finance Ministry, Stuart called on healthcare workers to reject pool and to demand they be paid the time and a half, double time and triple time offered to all other class of workers.
In the lead-up to last year’s General Election, the Government promised to begin wage negotiations at 10 per cent wage for public servants. Regional health authority workers, however, did not benefit from this after the Public Services Association (PSA) received the increase. The RHA workers were told that only those represented by the PSA would receive the increase, leaving them to negotiate with the various RHA boards.
But Stuart remains adamant that the promise included healthcare workers.
“We have no more time. No more patience for platitude. No more patience for promises. We want you (Government) to deliver what you promise on the platform,” he said.
He added that if no favourable answer was given by the end of yesterday, the TTNNA would take further steps but did not want to say what that may be.
Meanwhile, nurses said they have been performing miracles.
“Coming out in a profession to do something and expected to give 100, but they don’t have resources. But we still endure through it all with critical thinking skills and we get through. Everybody could always have something positive to say because we make it happen. We on the ground and they don’t ask us anything, but it just happens,” one nurse said.
Another nurse said she feels like a slave and had come out to demand her proverbial pound of flesh. She said nurses are fed up, adding the empty promises from politicians, coupled with lack of resources at health facilities, was “maddening.”
“Look, Erin Health Centre had to shut down today because nurses fed up! We need to be treated as human because this could never be right. That is why I come out with my chain and padlock with no key because this is slavery.”
Armed with placards that highlighted the length of time nurses hold their urine, to calling for the politicians to step up, the nurses were supported by the Joint Trade Union Movement. Among the unions present were the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association, Amalgamated Workers’ Union, Estate Police Association and the Communications Workers’ Union.
The nurses’ anthem throughout the march down Dundonald Street and then Richmond Street was reigning Calypso Monarch Terri Lyons’ Blessing, saying they hope to be blessed with salary increases soon.
