Nurses march on capital during wage protest

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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Nurs­es came out in their hun­dreds yes­ter­day to de­mand an in­crease in salaries, over­time rates com­pa­ra­ble to oth­er work­ers and to send a mes­sage to the Gov­ern­ment that they have had enough.

Lead­ing the charge was Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art. The nurs­es gath­ered at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, marched to the Min­istry of Health head of­fice on Char­lotte Street, then gath­er­ing on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, op­po­site the Min­istry of Fi­nance on In­de­pen­dence Square.

The protest was the largest by work­ers since Gov­ern­ment took of­fice last year. And nurs­es said they want to hear from the Gov­ern­ment, or else.

“We know they are meet­ing in Par­lia­ment to­day, so we ex­pect if this doesn’t force him (Health Min­is­ter Lack­ram Bo­doe) to make a state­ment, a clear de­ci­sive state­ment on when health­care work­ers will re­ceive a salary in­crease, then we may have to es­ca­late and we re­al­ly don’t want to es­ca­late,” Idi said.

“We are hear­ing all man­ner of things that is go­ing on right now with­in the health care sys­tem to­day, and we re­al­ly would not want a re­peat of that in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture. So, for their sake, for the pa­tient’s sake, please let us know what is go­ing on with our salary in­creas­es.”

While nurs­es from all re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing To­ba­go, were present, there were no re­ports of pa­tient care ne­glect at health fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try.

Sec­re­tary of the Di­vi­sion of Health and Well­ness Dr Faith Breb­nor, in a me­dia re­lease, said the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty re­mained un­af­fect­ed by the protest ac­tiv­i­ty and the au­thor­i­ty re­mained com­mit­ted to qual­i­ty health care for all our pa­tients.

Guardian Me­dia called and mes­saged North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh for com­ment on the protest, but up to press time there was no re­sponse.

Yes­ter­day’s protest was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by an NCRHA de­ci­sion to re­duce nurs­es’ over­time hourly rates, known as pool, from $75 hourly to $60 hourly. Ad­dress­ing the nurs­es out­side the Fi­nance Min­istry, Stu­art called on health­care work­ers to re­ject pool and to de­mand they be paid the time and a half, dou­ble time and triple time of­fered to all oth­er class of work­ers.

In the lead-up to last year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Gov­ern­ment promised to be­gin wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at 10 per cent wage for pub­lic ser­vants. Re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty work­ers, how­ev­er, did not ben­e­fit from this af­ter the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) re­ceived the in­crease. The RHA work­ers were told that on­ly those rep­re­sent­ed by the PSA would re­ceive the in­crease, leav­ing them to ne­go­ti­ate with the var­i­ous RHA boards.

But Stu­art re­mains adamant that the promise in­clud­ed health­care work­ers.

“We have no more time. No more pa­tience for plat­i­tude. No more pa­tience for promis­es. We want you (Gov­ern­ment) to de­liv­er what you promise on the plat­form,” he said.

He added that if no favourable an­swer was giv­en by the end of yes­ter­day, the TTNNA would take fur­ther steps but did not want to say what that may be.

Mean­while, nurs­es said they have been per­form­ing mir­a­cles.

“Com­ing out in a pro­fes­sion to do some­thing and ex­pect­ed to give 100, but they don’t have re­sources. But we still en­dure through it all with crit­i­cal think­ing skills and we get through. Every­body could al­ways have some­thing pos­i­tive to say be­cause we make it hap­pen. We on the ground and they don’t ask us any­thing, but it just hap­pens,” one nurse said.

An­oth­er nurse said she feels like a slave and had come out to de­mand her prover­bial pound of flesh. She said nurs­es are fed up, adding the emp­ty promis­es from politi­cians, cou­pled with lack of re­sources at health fa­cil­i­ties, was “mad­den­ing.”

“Look, Erin Health Cen­tre had to shut down to­day be­cause nurs­es fed up! We need to be treat­ed as hu­man be­cause this could nev­er be right. That is why I come out with my chain and pad­lock with no key be­cause this is slav­ery.”

Armed with plac­ards that high­light­ed the length of time nurs­es hold their urine, to call­ing for the politi­cians to step up, the nurs­es were sup­port­ed by the Joint Trade Union Move­ment. Among the unions present were the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union, Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion and the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union.

The nurs­es’ an­them through­out the march down Dun­don­ald Street and then Rich­mond Street was reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons’ Bless­ing, say­ing they hope to be blessed with salary in­creas­es soon.