Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Forty nurs­ing stu­dents whose pro­gramme was shut down by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion are now de­mand­ing $13 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

The stu­dents’ lawyer, Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, told Guardian Me­dia that a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was served to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly on May 19. He said if the min­istry does not re­spond, the mat­ter will go to the High Court.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said on March 14, 2022, the min­istry’s Nurs­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Unit post­ed an ad invit­ing in­di­vid­u­als to pur­sue a three-year pro­gramme that was sup­posed to start in May 2023. Af­ter the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the pro­gramme, the grad­u­ates were promised a three-year con­tract with one of the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties.

He said the stu­dents had a lot of run­ning around to get the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments to pur­sue the pro­gramme. He said thou­sands ap­plied but on­ly 40 per­sons were se­lect­ed.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh claimed the suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants were in­struct­ed to re­sign from their jobs since a stipend would be paid. How­ev­er, the ta­bles turned and the pro­gramme was scrapped.

He said on May 5, 2023, the stu­dents re­ceived an email stat­ing they were to re­port to the School of Nurs­ing at Palm’s Club on May 9, 2023, for 9 am.

Up­on their ar­rival, they were asked to switch off their phones and were told by a doc­tor they iden­ti­fied as S Mo­hammed that the pro­gramme had been can­celled by the Min­is­ter for no rea­son and they would not be start­ing a gen­er­al nurs­ing pro­gramme on May 22, 2023.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the $13 mil­lion fig­ure rep­re­sent­ed what the stu­dents would have lost in the past year, the time dur­ing their study and fu­ture em­ploy­ment.

Asked if he had any in­for­ma­tion about why the pro­gramme was shut down, he said, “There seems to be some lob­by by some as­so­ci­a­tion in the Min­istry of Health from what I sur­mise but that is not for us to deal with. This is a promise, a breach of con­tract by the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion. We call up­on her to set­tle this mat­ter ur­gent­ly.”

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said no one from the min­istry has reached out to the stu­dents.

“They have been so hurt and in pain and in an­guish that they have de­cid­ed to in­sti­tute le­gal ac­tion.”

He said stu­dents had to pur­chase books and uni­forms and some of them may have lost as much as $100,000 if they had to quit their jobs.

He said the stu­dents plan to give a copy of the pre-pro­to­col let­ter to the Min­is­ter in Par­lia­ment at the next sit­ting.

“We are call­ing on the Min­istry to re­solve this mat­ter be­fore it is filed in the High Court,” he said.

Kanes­sa Matas, 30, of Clax­ton Bay, said she had to cough up around $10,000 to buy books, uni­form and un­der­take med­ical tests.

“We are re­al­ly hurt, we are dis­ap­point­ed, we had al­ready pre­pared our­selves to go in this nurs­ing ca­reer,” Matas said.

Matas said she was heart­bro­ken and had not got­ten any ex­pla­na­tions.

“This was sup­posed to be my ca­reer… to hear that tak­en away two weeks be­fore the pro­gramme start­ed, it was re­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing.”

Ker­rice Sim­mons, 29, of New Grant, said she was in tears when she got the news. She showed all the nurs­ing text­books she bought but which are now use­less. Chris­tine John, of St Julien, Princes Town, said she quit her job and when she went back to beg for her old job af­ter be­ing told the pro­gramme had been can­celled, she was told a re­place­ment had been found.

John said she was too stressed out to col­lect the nurs­ing uni­form she had or­dered.

“We were re­al­ly prepar­ing for this pro­gramme and two weeks be­fore to can­cel, it was ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ing and heart­break­ing,” John said, adding she has lost well over $15,000.

“I don’t know how to process every­thing, I’m try­ing to cope and not let it pull me down.”

A What­sApp mes­sage sent to Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly for a com­ment on the clo­sure of the nurs­ing pro­gramme went unan­swered up to press time last night.