The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion is elat­ed that it was able to ne­go­ti­ate on be­half of nurs­es, which it be­lieves swayed the hand of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to en­sure they re­ceive a much-need­ed rise in salaries.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School on Wednes­day night, Young said af­ter a meet­ing with the TTNNA he in­struct­ed that nurs­es be giv­en an in­crease from 2013. 

“It was al­so brought to my at­ten­tion yes­ter­day that the nurs­es work­ing for the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties across the length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go have not had their salaries looked at and ad­just­ed since 2013. “Well, I stand here tonight as the eighth Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and tell our nurs­es who have giv­en yeo­man ser­vice, who save lives and who look af­ter us in the hos­pi­tals and the health­care cen­tres that this morn­ing (Wednes­day) I gave in­struc­tions that that be fixed and that the CPO look at giv­ing our nurs­es in­creas­es from 2013.” 

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a meet­ing with Young on Wednes­day, TTNNA pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art wrote: “This is a his­toric day for all nurs­ing and mid­wifery per­son­nel. As it seems for the first time, nurs­ing and mid­wifery per­son­nel will ne­go­ti­ate for them­selves. This has been a long road. But we have fi­nal­ly achieved an­oth­er ma­jor goal.” 

Young al­so promised that nurs­ing stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies will re­ceive the same stipend as nurs­ing stu­dents who at­tend the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of TT (COSTAATT). 

“Nurs­ing stu­dents tonight, the next PNM gov­ern­ment that I in­tend on lead­ing from the 29th of April will ad­dress this and the stu­dents in UWI and USC will get the same stipend as those in COSTAATT.” 

Ad­dress­ing oth­er is­sues, Young said he would al­so con­sid­er rais­ing the re­tire­ment age for mem­bers of the De­fence Force. He said mem­bers are made to re­tire as young as 45 and he will seek to rem­e­dy that, es­pe­cial­ly when “boots on the ground” are need­ed.

“So tonight, I tell our men and women in the De­fence Force that the next PNM gov­ern­ment is go­ing to give con­sid­er­a­tion to rais­ing the age of re­tire­ment for our ser­vice­men and women, be­cause we recog­nise now more than ever you still have good years of ser­vice ahead of you. We’re go­ing to look at the in­tro­duc­tion of con­di­tions that you get med­ical clear­ance and what­ev­er else needs to do.” 

The plan is not new as Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Po­lit­i­cal Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the same promise in 2022, say­ing the State should re­tain the ex­per­tise of mem­bers of the De­fence Force for as long as pos­si­ble.