Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter ex­plo­sive al­le­ga­tions of gang­ster­ism, in­tim­i­da­tion and ex­tor­tion sur­faced with­in the NCRHA’s Pa­tient Es­cort and Hos­pi­tal At­ten­dant Ser­vices, chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh says the once “ter­ri­ble” sit­u­a­tion is im­prov­ing and the au­thor­i­ty is get­ting bet­ter re­sults from work­ers.

Gopeesingh told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that staff across the NCRHA are al­so be­com­ing more com­fort­able and “rel­a­tive­ly hap­pi­er” in their work­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

“Even now, what was a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion with the pa­tient es­corts and the at­ten­dants. They are now be­ing en­cour­aged to per­form bet­ter and we’re get­ting bet­ter re­sults while we are try­ing to get fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on each one of the work­ers and deal­ing with the is­sues that are aris­ing from day to day,” Gopeesingh said.

His com­ments fol­low a Sep­tem­ber 1 re­lease in which the NCRHA dis­closed se­ri­ous prob­lems with­in the two ser­vices, which em­ploy more than 400 peo­ple.

The au­thor­i­ty said an in­ter­nal re­view un­cov­ered re­ports and al­le­ga­tions of bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion, ex­tor­tion, threats and al­leged gang af­fil­i­a­tion.

Dai­ly ab­sen­teeism was re­port­ed­ly be­tween 30 and 50 per cent, while the re­view al­so iden­ti­fied late-com­ing, em­ploy­ees leav­ing shifts ear­ly and, in some cas­es, re­fusal to trans­port pa­tients.

The NCRHA said the prob­lems af­fect­ed pa­tient trans­fers and, in some cas­es, am­bu­lance op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, it said mea­sures in­tro­duced by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion were al­ready pro­duc­ing re­sults, with im­proved at­ten­dance, faster pa­tient trans­fers and “greater or­der, sta­bil­i­ty and a sense of peace” with­in the de­part­ment.

Gopeesingh yes­ter­day said the im­prove­ments are con­tin­u­ing.

Mean­while, the T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, Idi Stu­art, said prob­lems in­volv­ing some work­ers in the health sys­tem ex­ist­ed for more than a decade.

Stu­art al­leged that some peo­ple who were not al­ways suit­ed to work with­in a health­care or­gan­i­sa­tion en­tered the sys­tem through po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

“We were al­so aware that those per­sons would have been brought in via po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion,” Stu­art said.

He said nurs­es have felt the im­pact when pa­tient es­corts and at­ten­dants fail to per­form their du­ties.

In some cas­es, he said, nurs­es have had to take up those du­ties be­cause “the job can­not be stopped, oth­er­wise the pa­tient will suf­fer.”

How­ev­er, Stu­art cau­tioned that the ma­jor­i­ty of pa­tient es­corts and at­ten­dants are hard-work­ing and should not be tar­nished be­cause of al­le­ga­tions against a small­er group.

He al­so called for any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion to fol­low a trans­par­ent and fair process.

Gopeesingh was asked whether any­one had been sus­pend­ed and whether re­ports had been made to po­lice.

He said he had re­leased what he was re­quired to make pub­lic, and there was no fur­ther com­ment at this time.