Nurses’ industrial action signals deeper systemic failures, says Teelucksingh

Jesse Ramdeo 

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Con­sul­tant physi­cian and CNC3’s “Ask the Doc­tor” host Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh is warn­ing that the on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween nurs­es and man­age­ment at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) high­lights deep­er sys­temic is­sues in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic health­care sys­tem.

Speak­ing on Thurs­day’s pro­gramme, Teelucks­ingh said re­cent in­dus­tri­al ac­tion by nurs­es should not be dis­missed as a mere dis­rup­tion, but un­der­stood as a symp­tom of long-stand­ing, un­re­solved con­cerns.

“On the lo­cal scene, there are grow­ing con­cerns fol­low­ing protests by nurs­es across sec­tions of the pub­lic health sys­tem,” he not­ed. “Re­duc­ing this to just a dis­rup­tion miss­es the deep­er is­sue.”

He em­pha­sised that ac­tions such as sick-outs are rarely spon­ta­neous.

“Sick-outs don’t hap­pen in iso­la­tion. They’re usu­al­ly the fi­nal ex­pres­sion of frus­tra­tion af­ter con­cerns have been raised re­peat­ed­ly and too of­ten left un­re­solved,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh de­scribed nurs­es as the back­bone of the health­care sys­tem.

“Nurs­es are not just em­ploy­ees—they are the sys­tem. They pro­vide front­line care un­der in­tense phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al strain,” he stat­ed.

His com­ments come amid es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions at the NCRHA, where nurs­es re­cent­ly staged a silent protest at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope fol­low­ing the au­thor­i­ty’s de­ci­sion to re­duce over­time rates from $75 to $60 per hour.

Of­fi­cials de­fend­ed the move, cit­ing “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties” in over­time claims, in­clud­ing re­ports of some nurs­es log­ging be­tween 200 and 400 over­time hours, con­tribut­ing to an es­ti­mat­ed $36 mil­lion an­nu­al cost.

How­ev­er, Teelucks­ingh warned that any with­draw­al of nurs­ing labour car­ries se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

“When nurs­es with­draw their labour, it sig­nals some­thing se­ri­ous,” he said, ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­pact on pa­tients.

“De­lays in care, post­poned clin­ics, and longer wait­ing times place ad­di­tion­al stress on peo­ple who are al­ready vul­ner­a­ble.”

He stressed that the sit­u­a­tion is not about tak­ing sides, but about ad­dress­ing an im­bal­ance.

“A health­care sys­tem can­not func­tion if its work­force feels un­der­val­ued, un­heard, or ex­haust­ed. But it al­so can­not af­ford in­ter­rup­tions in care with­out af­fect­ing those who de­pend on it most.”

Teelucks­ingh iden­ti­fied lead­er­ship gaps as a key fac­tor in the es­ca­la­tion, not­ing that such dis­putes of­ten de­vel­op over time due to poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and de­layed re­spons­es.

“Sit­u­a­tions like this rarely de­vel­op overnight. They build through gaps in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, de­lays in de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and missed op­por­tu­ni­ties to ad­dress con­cerns be­fore they es­ca­late,” he said.

He called for a shift from re­ac­tive mea­sures to mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment.

“What is need­ed now is not re­ac­tion, but res­o­lu­tion, en­gage­ment, trans­par­ent di­a­logue, and a gen­uine com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing both work­ing con­di­tions and pa­tient care.”

The dis­pute has been fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by con­cerns raised by Idi Stu­art, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion over re­ports that the NCRHA is seek­ing to re­cruit more than 100 mid­wives from In­dia. Stu­art called the move in­ad­e­quate and dis­re­spect­ful to lo­cal nurs­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly amid on­go­ing dis­putes over salaries, staffing short­ages, and work­ing con­di­tions. To date, there has been no of­fi­cial re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, or the Min­istries of Health and Labour, de­spite re­peat­ed re­quests for com­ment.

Teelucks­ingh warned that the han­dling of the mat­ter will have last­ing con­se­quences.

“The re­sponse will de­ter­mine whether this be­comes a turn­ing point or just an­oth­er chap­ter in a cy­cle that re­peats it­self,” he said.

“When those who care for the na­tion be­gin to feel un­car­ed for them­selves, the en­tire sys­tem is at risk.”