Nurses promise more protests

THE TT Registered Nurses Association (TTRNA) has planned to keep on protesting until they get a meeting with Minster of Health Terrance Deyalsingh to discuss settlement of all outstanding wage negotiations.

This comes as sustained protests by health workers in the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) led to a promise to pay all outstanding arrears, amounting to roughly $39m, owed to workers within that RHA.

On Thursday, nurses at the San Fernando General Hospital staged a protest at the facility demanding better wages, job security, insurance benefits and better working conditions.

Led by the union’s president, Idi Stuart, the nurses began their protest in front the accident and emergency department and then moved through the hospital corridors chanting: “What good for teachers, it good for nurses too.” Stuart said they were not upset that the teachers were given additional incentives to come out to work, but claimed Deyalsingh and the health ministry has neglected the nurses who worked tirelessly during the peak of the covid19 crisis in the country.

“We will continue these protests almost daily across the country, in every health facility since the minister has failed to show his appreciation and empathy for what we went through in covid19. “We are here today to demonstrate our disgust, our disappointment and the insult that has been met to our profession. We must let the minister know that it is in an insult to be building costly permanent structures across the country, yet you are employing nurses and midwives in a temporary capacity,” Stuart said.

Stuart said that is unfortunate that to get redress, protests rather than dialogue and negotiation, is what the aggrieved have to resort to. “It seems as though for us to get our money, we need to come out like the NCRHA workers and protest. It was extremely unfortunate that it required mass demonstrations by two unions to get government and the NCRHA to pay what was owed to workers.

“Minister (of Finance) Colm Imbert once said we (government) will keep holding back until people come out and demonstrate. He ain’t see nobody riot yet so money will not be paid. As long as people riot, only then will people start to be paid. So, if it is riot they want, it is riot they will get.”

Stuart said nurses and those in training continue to be treated badly as their stipends, accommodations, travelling allowances, and other gestures owed to them were taken away.

He said they continue to work with 2013 salaries and their job security continues to hang on the line even though they have been lobbying for years for their entitled dues.

Stuart accused the ministry of running a faulty ambulance service in the public health system as the service has not been registered under the Emergency Ambulance Services and Emergency Personnel Medical Act.

He said, “That is not an ambulance. The regional health authorities have no authority to have ambulances. That is nothing more than a bread van with signage. If you do not register under the act you cannot put the word ambulance on a vehicle and have it running.

Stuart urged the nurses to demand from their employers’ documentation which stated it was mandatory for them to board ambulance, as compensation for injuries incurred on the vehicle does not cover nurses and that came at a loss for the individual.

In an attempt to get a response to the claims made by the TTRNA, the ministry told Newsday to send an e-mail to its corporate communications department but up to late Thursday evening, there was no response. Friday was the Labour Day public holiday so no one was at the ministry’s corporate communications department that day.