Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert says Gov­ern­ment plans to reg­u­larise con­tracts for nurs­es among its goals for fis­cal 2021/22.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s 2022 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the par­lia­ment, Im­bert said, “I’ve al­so been ad­vised, madame Speak­er, that sev­er­al nurs­es in the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties are em­ployed on tem­po­rary con­tracts. As a re­sult, I’ve in­struct­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to in­ves­ti­gate this sit­u­a­tion and its im­pli­ca­tion for pen­sion arrange­ments and rec­om­mend so­lu­tions to en­sure that the em­ploy­ment con­tracts of these nurs­es are reg­u­larised,” Im­bert said. 

“I ex­pect that this ex­er­cise will be com­plet­ed by the end of De­cem­ber 2021.”

The an­nounce­ment has been met with favour by T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art, who thanked Min­is­ter Im­bert for the move. 

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion must in­di­cate our ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the Fi­nance Min­is­ter ac­knowl­edg­ing first­ly that there is a grave prob­lem with re­gards to the em­ploy­ment prac­tices of nurs­es with­in the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties,” Stu­art said. 

He was al­so pleased with the time­line pro­posed by Im­bert. The move, he said, will ben­e­fit al­most one-third of nurs­es na­tion­al­ly.

“I am es­ti­mat­ing around 2,000 nurs­es who are on dif­fer­ent forms of tem­po­rary con­tracts and it’s (the con­tracts) wide and nu­mer­ous,” he said.

“You have from one-year con­tracts ow­ing gra­tu­ity, then you have oth­ers on three months, six months, one-year tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment with­out no gra­tu­ity, no pen­sion. You have oth­ers act­ing as nurs­es - what­ev­er that’s sup­posed to mean.”

It’s a point of con­tention for the TTR­NA which formed part of its demon­stra­tion last Fri­day.

Im­bert al­so an­nounced yes­ter­day that the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer was in­struct­ed to set­tle out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in the pub­lic ser­vice in 2022. While this is al­so a wel­comed move for nurs­es, Stu­art fears the TTR­NA is dis­ad­van­taged in this process. 

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion ap­plied to be recog­nised as the ma­jor­i­ty union for nurs­es some six years ago and is still await­ing ap­proval from the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board. He is ask­ing that this be rec­ti­fied for these up­com­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

How­ev­er, if it is not, he is ask­ing that the TTR­NA still be al­lowed to ne­go­ti­ate on be­half of nurs­es in lieu of the ap­proval. 

The health sec­tor was al­lo­cat­ed $6.395 bil­lion in the bud­get - its al­lo­ca­tion largest yet. Min­is­ter Im­bert in­di­cat­ed that some US$18.1 mil­lion had al­so been spent on ac­quir­ing COVID-19 vac­cines.