The op­er­a­tions of the Nurs­ing Coun­cil of T&T are set to re­sume, lat­er this week. 

Dur­ing a hear­ing of a law­suit brought by oust­ed coun­cil pres­i­dent David Mur­phy at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Min­istry of Health in­formed High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad that six mem­bers of the coun­cil are ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed by Wednes­day. 

The of­fi­cial stat­ed that Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh had re­ceived Cab­i­net ap­proval for the ap­point­ments and was in the process of send­ing let­ters to the ap­pointees. 

The move, which was en­cour­aged by Seep­er­sad dur­ing a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, last month, will mean that the coun­cil will have a law­ful quo­rum, to per­form its du­ties in reg­is­ter­ing nurs­es and ad­min­is­ter­ing nurs­ing ex­am­i­na­tions, un­til the is­sues with the elect­ed mem­bers are re­solved in the law­suit. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, who is rep­re­sent­ing three nurs­ing as­so­ci­a­tions, raised con­cerns over whether Mur­phy would be reap­point­ed to the board by Deyals­ingh. 

Seep­er­sad did not dis­miss the con­cerns but said that they were spec­u­la­tive con­sid­er­ing that the ap­point­ments are yet to be of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced. 

Seep­er­sad then ad­journed the case to Oc­to­ber 29. 

Mur­phy filed the law­suit, ear­ly last month, af­ter his fel­low coun­cil mem­bers called an 807th or­di­nary meet­ing on Au­gust 26, dur­ing which he was oust­ed and Chris Craig­well was ap­point­ed as in­ter­im pres­i­dent. 

Mur­phy claimed that the Nurs­ing Per­son­nel Act, which es­tab­lished the coun­cil and dic­tates func­tions, does not al­low the coun­cil to take ma­jor de­ci­sions af­ter its term end­ed. 

He al­so al­leged that the leg­is­la­tion does pro­vide for an in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. 

Mur­phy al­so claimed that his fel­low coun­cil mem­bers’ de­ci­sion to pass a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in him was based on the fact that he wrote to Deyals­ingh to com­plain over their in­abil­i­ty to com­plete the out­stand­ing elec­tions of the elect­ed mem­bers of the coun­cil.

Mur­phy, the prin­ci­pal of the School of Nurs­ing at the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal and a Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist pas­tor, claimed that elec­tions were held af­ter the coun­cil’s term ex­pired but the re­sults have nev­er been re­leased. 

Dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing, Seep­er­sad ruled that con­trary to what was claimed by lawyers for the Min­istry of Health, there is no statu­to­ry pro­vi­sion bar­ring Deyals­ingh from ap­point­ing six mem­bers of the coun­cil be­fore the oth­er mem­bers are se­lect­ed. 

The coun­cil con­sists of 16 mem­bers. Six are se­lect­ed by the Min­is­ter of Health, nine are elect­ed by the over 10,000 mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion and the Chief Nurs­ing Of­fi­cer serves as an ex-of­fi­cio mem­ber. The coun­cil then votes for a pres­i­dent, vice-pres­i­dent, and trea­sur­er from among its ranks. 

Mur­phy is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen, Dayadai Har­ri­paul, and Umesh Ma­haraj, while Elaine Green is rep­re­sent­ing the coun­cil.