The Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) is “cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic” fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the North West Re­gion­al Health Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) in the wake of a third out­break of COVID-19 among nurs­ing staff in the old COSTAATT build­ing at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

The meet­ing was held with the NWRHA ex­ec­u­tives last Tues­day and in­clud­ed the act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO), Sal­isha Baksh. 

“The meet­ing re­mained cor­dial through­out, how­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion left be­ing cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic, how­ev­er on a num­ber of our con­cerns. It does not ap­pear that it is with­in the abil­i­ty for Ms Baksh to cor­rect,” TTR­NA pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art told Guardian Me­dia. 

He said com­ing out of the meet­ing was a promise by the NWRHA to in­stall ad­di­tion­al fil­ters to the air con­di­tion­ing units and to in­stall ul­tra-vi­o­let lights to kill vi­ral par­ti­cles. 

How­ev­er, he not­ed one of their main sug­ges­tions is out­side the re­mit of the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty and the as­so­ci­a­tion in­tends to raise it with the Min­istry of Health. 

The as­so­ci­a­tion called for the con­tin­u­ous test­ing of nurs­ing and med­ical staff for the virus along with any pa­tients be­ing ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal. How­ev­er, this is against the na­tion­al pol­i­cy for COVID-19 test­ing. 

“The na­tion­al pol­i­cy is ba­si­cal­ly, you have to be show­ing signs and symp­toms of COVID-19 or be­ing in con­tact with known pos­i­tive cas­es.

“So this would in­hib­it them from per­form­ing this con­tin­u­ous test­ing.

“So that is some­thing we’d have to bring up with the Min­istry of Health for them to ad­dress,” he said. 

With­in the past three weeks, some 25 nurs­ing staff and oth­er med­ical staff as­signed to the old COSTAATT build­ing were sent on im­me­di­ate quar­an­tine leave.

At least five have since test­ed pos­i­tive along with three pa­tients. Stu­art de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “un­ten­able.” 

Speak­ing dur­ing a min­istry’s vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence last Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said they viewed the de­vel­op­ment as se­ri­ous and as a re­sult con­vened a meet­ing with all Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties CEOs. 

“We view this so se­ri­ous­ly that yes­ter­day (Tues­day) morn­ing, at 8.30, my­self, the CMO and the PS met with all CEO’S across the board...to dis­cuss the is­sue and to come up with so­lu­tions to make sure what hap­pens in Port-of-Spain isn’t repli­cat­ed across the health care sys­tem,” Deyals­ingh said then.