Nurses disgruntled over payout arrangement

Nurses protest outside the St Ann's Phsychiatric Hospital on June 24.   - AYANNA KINSALE
Nurses protest outside the St Ann's Phsychiatric Hospital on June 24. - AYANNA KINSALE

Workers at the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) are disgruntled about the payment of arrears of increments which on June 24, as some workers had the promised pay-out deducted from their pay packages. The authority said the workers were paid approximately $40 million in increments before the promised dates of July 30 to July 4.

This issue was one of several raised during a meeting between the Registered Nurses Association, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, the permanent secretary in the ministry and the CEOs of the five RHAs in Trinidad on Monday.

Association president Idi Stuart said the increments paid by the authority were only for the period 2015 to 2018 and did not include the period 2019 to 2020. He said the authority was also making deductions from what is owed to the workers.

“They’re now telling them they are owing the RHA for outstanding sums they have never informed the employee about. And even when they deduct this money, they still have not provided information or any form of evidence that the employee actually owes the authority this money. So on one hand, they say they are giving it out and on the other hand they are deducting. So the nurses never actually got it and they have no understanding of why the deductions were made, which is against the Exchequer Audit Act, so this is why we will continue with our demonstrations across TT to rectify these situations.”

NCRHA CEO Davlin Thomas said the authority had agreed with the union to set up a help desk next week to address the issue.

“We agreed next week we will engage all of that, treat each one as a separate issue and meet with people so everyone will be clear. Recovery is normal, if you owe the RHA for something. If there is some overpayment or there are monies owed to the RHA, the financial regulations require that we take it out if you’re getting lump-sum payments. We wouldn’t be able to justify issuing 100 per cent payment to someone who owed the RHA.”

Stuart said the issue of increments owed to workers at the other RHAs was also raised and a resolution was reached, which was that increments will be paid in term of people being brought up to their current salaries.

He said other issues raised included proposals made to the health ministry concerning health insurance, hazard allowance and death benefits for members; the ambulances being operated by the RHAs without an ambulance licence; the Nursing Council being properly constituted/composed to be able to properly carry out its functions; and the employment status of nurses and midwives.

Stuart said some staff had been working under temporary status anywhere from four to ten years in some instances.

“Placing them in this disadvantageous position of temporary employee is thereby denying them pension as if they were permanent, or gratuity as if they were on contract. This is one of the issues we are not budging on. All nurses and midwives must be placed, after their probationary period, on a permanent employment basis or, at a minimum, a three-year contract with gratuity. We are not tolerating any one-year temporary employment.”

Thomas said the union will finalise their position on the permanency issue to the NCRHA in writing by July 7 so the authority could engage the ministry further.

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