Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art is warn­ing that his mem­ber­ship will be tak­ing to the streets to voice new and out­stand­ing con­cerns with­in the coun­try’s health in­dus­try.

The pro­posed ac­tion comes even af­ter Stu­art and the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive and Health Min­istry of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, met yes­ter­day at the min­istry’s head of­fice in Port-of-Spain, years af­ter their last of­fi­cial dis­cus­sion.

“We are, as the as­so­ci­a­tion, in­deed plan­ning for some type of demon­stra­tion to this very build­ing and al­so to the CPO of­fice be­cause there are a num­ber of is­sues that are re­al­ly on­go­ing for far too long and we need to prob­a­bly start bring­ing out nurs­ing per­son­nel, so they can dis­play their dis­plea­sure to the pol­i­cy­mak­ers who are tak­ing too long on these mat­ters,” Stu­art said.

Salary talks are on the front burn­er, he said.

“Nurs­ing per­son­nel work­ing on 2013 salaries in 2024, in ex­cess of 11 years. Nurs­ing per­son­nel work­ing on out­dat­ed salaries, sure­ly by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion we have been very pa­tient, no one can ac­cuse the as­so­ci­a­tion of not be­ing pa­tient. A demon­stra­tion is def­i­nite­ly on the cards,” he said.

The Health Min­istry has no purview over de­ter­min­ing salaries. This falls to the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, who de­ter­mines and/or ad­vis­es on pay and oth­er terms and con­di­tions of ser­vice for a wide spec­trum of em­ploy­ees with­in the pub­lic sec­tor.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, how­ev­er, main­tained that the talks were pro­duc­tive and geared to­wards so­lu­tions for the as­so­ci­a­tion.

He said, “We were able to clar­i­fy many is­sues and al­so point the TTR­NA to oth­er state agen­cies and min­istries on per­ti­nent mat­ters that do not fall un­der the re­mit of the MoH or the RHAs. At the end, there was con­sen­sus to keep the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tions open.”

Stu­art con­firmed that among oth­er con­cerns laid on the ta­ble dur­ing the meet­ing was the ab­sence of a Health Sec­tor Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil.

“We are thank­ful the min­is­ter af­ford­ed us this op­por­tu­ni­ty, but from the lan­guage we were get­ting ... re­al­ly and tru­ly and sad­ly, we may not see that bill be­ing brought be­fore Par­lia­ment un­der this leg­isla­tive pe­ri­od,” he said.

Stu­art said for years the as­so­ci­a­tion had been ag­i­tat­ing for the body that would pro­vide over­sight of all hos­pi­tals across the coun­try. It was pro­posed in 2002 and pre­sent­ed in par­lia­ment in 2013.

Stu­art al­so said, “We would be fac­ing a mas­sive short­fall in spe­cial­ist-trained nurs­ing per­son­nel. This is a ma­jor point; in ad­di­tion to hav­ing a short­age in ba­sic nurs­ing trainees, we have a mas­sive short­age of spe­cial­ist nurs­ing trainees so when you go to the ICU, the­atres, dial­y­sis, on­col­o­gy you would end up find­ing they would not be specif­i­cal­ly trained for those ar­eas, it is re­al­ly un­ac­cept­able.”

He said dis­cus­sions al­so fo­cused on the per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment chal­lenges fac­ing nurs­es.

“We still have the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty still hir­ing per­son­nel on tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment, they not even get­ting a gra­tu­ity or pen­sion when they re­tire and that is un­ten­able, re­al­ly rel­e­gat­ing nurs­es to a life of pover­ty,” Stu­art said.