Nurses stage weekend sickout amid staffing, pay disputes

Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The cur­rent im­passe be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and nurs­es, re­sult­ing in a sick­out over the week­end, is ex­pect­ed to get worse as the week pro­gress­es.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, some nurs­es said they have no oth­er re­course than to stay at home to avoid be­ing trapped at work.

Nurs­ing staff are man­dat­ed not to leave pa­tients un­less they are re­lieved by oth­er staff mem­bers. How­ev­er, with many nurs­es re­fus­ing to show up for du­ty on Sat­ur­day and yes­ter­day, some re­lief staff said they would rather not show up than do so and be forced in­to over­time.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that yes­ter­day, there were at least 30 pa­tients at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment with no nurs­ing staff.

There was one nurse for most of the day at the pe­di­atric de­part­ment, and no nurs­es at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment.

A sim­i­lar is­sue hap­pened at the North-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, with one nurse show­ing up for each shift at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Be­cause of staff short­age on Sat­ur­day night, nurs­es had to be tak­en from oth­er ar­eas to meet the short­fall.

Nurs­es al­so com­plained that they are forced to go from ward to ward for ba­sic med­ical sup­plies such as saline, and are ad­min­is­ter­ing ex­pired med­ica­tion.

They said they plan to protest in front of the of­fice build­ings of the var­i­ous re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to North-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty CEO Dr An­tho­ny Blake and North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh, but up to press time there was no an­swer.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe did not an­swer calls made to him or re­spond to mes­sages.

In an eight-point re­quest shared with Guardian Me­dia, nurs­es high­light­ed their griev­ances, which stem from a de­ci­sion by Gopeesingh to cur­tail over­time, known as pool.

The month­ly hours quo­ta was re­duced from 60 ad­di­tion­al hours month­ly to 40, with a re­duced pay­ment of $60 an hour from $75.

In the uni­fy­ing state­ment, the nurs­es called for fair treat­ment.

“For far too long, nurs­es have been ex­pect­ed to car­ry the weight of the health­care sys­tem while be­ing un­der­val­ued, un­der­paid and dis­re­spect­ed.”

The nurs­es claim Gopeesingh was dis­mis­sive to­wards them, which they found to be dis­re­spect­ful and au­thor­i­ta­tive and are de­mand­ing an apol­o­gy for his sup­posed dis­mis­sive at­ti­tude.

List of de­mands by nurs­es to end the ac­tion:

1. Recog­ni­tion of nurs­ing as a pro­fes­sion — not as­sis­tants

Nurs­es are trained, skilled pro­fes­sion­als who work along­side doc­tors as equals. Our role must be re­spect­ed ac­cord­ing­ly and paid as such.

2. Salary ad­just­ment — End the 2013 pay scale

We de­mand up­dat­ed salaries that re­flect cur­rent eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties and the crit­i­cal na­ture of our work.

3. End to pool ex­ploita­tion

Pool sys­tems must be re­placed with prop­er, law­ful over­time com­pen­sa­tion.

4. Full com­pen­sa­tion for out­stand­ing pool pay­ments

Every nurse must be paid in full for all com­plet­ed pool work — no de­lays, no ex­cep­tions.

5. Safe work­ing en­vi­ron­ments

Pro­tec­tion from work­place vi­o­lence, burnout and un­safe con­di­tions must be pri­ori­tised. No more short­ages.

6. Im­ple­men­ta­tion of safe nurse-to-pa­tient ra­tios

Pa­tient safe­ty and nurse well­be­ing de­pend on prop­er staffing lev­els.

7. Re­spect, dig­ni­ty and equal treat­ment

Nurs­es must be treat­ed as equal mem­bers of the health­care team, with our voic­es heard and val­ued.

8. Job se­cu­ri­ty — end pro­longed con­tract em­ploy­ment

Nurs­es work­ing for over three years on con­tract must be grant­ed per­ma­nent po­si­tions