Tobago unaffected by TTNNA 6 to 1 directive, Brebnor says

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor says To­ba­go re­mains un­af­fect­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion’s di­rec­tive for nurs­es to lim­it care to six pa­tients.

Her com­ments fol­low a Face­book Live on Tues­day in which TTNNA pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art called on nurs­es in Trinidad to refuse as­sign­ments ex­ceed­ing a 6 to 1 pa­tient ra­tio. He said the mea­sure will take ef­fect from April 28, co­in­cid­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s first an­niver­sary.

In a me­dia re­sponse, Breb­nor said sev­er­al mem­bers of the me­dia had con­tact­ed her in­di­vid­u­al­ly about on­go­ing nurs­ing chal­lenges.

She said the TTNNA’s ac­tions re­late specif­i­cal­ly to con­di­tions in Trinidad and do not ap­ply to To­ba­go.

Breb­nor said the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty main­tains an av­er­age nurse to pa­tient ra­tio of 1:5 to 1:7.

She said the TRHA con­tin­ues to re­cruit nurs­es to main­tain prop­er work­ing stan­dards