TTNNA wants urgent wages talks for its healthcare workers

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) is call­ing for ur­gent wage ne­go­ti­a­tions to be­gin, warn­ing that grow­ing frus­tra­tion among health­care work­ers is al­ready dis­rupt­ing ser­vices, with the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Com­plex (EWMC) se­vere­ly short-staffed over the week­end.

TTNNA pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion has writ­ten to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs), urg­ing them to move swift­ly to set­tle ne­go­ti­a­tions in the in­ter­est of pub­lic health, pa­tient safe­ty and in­dus­tri­al sta­bil­i­ty.

“We want ne­go­ti­a­tions to start as soon as pos­si­ble,” Stu­art said. “The sen­ti­ment on the ground right now is ex­treme­ly volatile. It would be in the Gov­ern­ment’s best in­ter­est, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the health sec­tor, to re­solve these is­sues quick­ly.”

Stu­art said health­care work­ers across the RHAs feel short-changed, un­ap­pre­ci­at­ed and deeply de­mo­ti­vat­ed af­ter years of stalled ne­go­ti­a­tions, warn­ing that the sit­u­a­tion could de­te­ri­o­rate fur­ther if ac­tion is de­layed.

“That lev­el of dis­con­tent would not bode well in the com­ing days,” he said. “We are al­ready see­ing it be­gin to play out.”

Stu­art said re­ports re­ceived by the as­so­ci­a­tion in­di­cat­ed that dis­rup­tions have been oc­cur­ring spo­rad­i­cal­ly across dif­fer­ent hos­pi­tals and on dif­fer­ent days, dri­ven by frus­tra­tion among work­ers.

“At Er­ic Williams Med­ical Com­plex on Sat­ur­day, the sit­u­a­tion was re­al­ly bad,” he said. “That in­sti­tu­tion, and oth­ers un­der the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, are ex­treme­ly short-staffed. When even one or two nurs­es stay home, it crip­ples ser­vices.”

He ex­plained that in fa­cil­i­ties al­ready op­er­at­ing with min­i­mal staff, the ab­sence of just a few nurs­es can se­vere­ly dis­rupt pa­tient care, af­fect­ing clin­ics, wards and sched­uled pro­ce­dures.

“In hos­pi­tals that are bet­ter staffed, the im­pact might be felt but not as se­vere­ly,” Stu­art said. “But in short-staffed in­sti­tu­tions, pa­tients are the ones who suf­fer most.” Stu­art stressed that the as­so­ci­a­tion does not want pa­tients to bear the brunt of the in­dus­tri­al un­rest.

“As a pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tion, we do not want this for the coun­try,” he said. “We want the un­ease pa­tients are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing right now to come to a quick end.”

On Fri­day, sched­uled surg­eries at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were dis­rupt­ed af­ter op­er­at­ing the­atre at­ten­dants called in sick, an ac­tion that was said to be linked to their frus­tra­tion over be­ing in­formed that they would not re­ceive back­pay this month.

While health work­ers em­ployed by the Min­istry of Health will re­ceive part of their back­pay this month fol­low­ing the De­cem­ber 2 “ten per cent” agree­ment be­tween the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO), there is an­oth­er group of health work­ers em­ployed di­rect­ly by the RHAs who will not get a sim­i­lar pay­day. Those work­ers are al­so rep­re­sent­ed by the PSA.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo called on health work­ers not to dis­rupt pa­tient care and es­sen­tial ser­vices. They have threat­ened to em­bark on a “go-slow” the week of Christ­mas.

Yes­ter­day, Stu­art warned that unions have lim­it­ed con­trol over mem­bers when frus­tra­tion reach­es a break­ing point.

“Health­care work­ers are ex­treme­ly dis­grun­tled and are tak­ing spo­radic days, which is lead­ing to se­ri­ous dis­rup­tion,” Stu­art said. “Oth­er­wise, there is re­al­ly lit­tle that unions can con­trol in terms of what mem­bers may de­cide to do.”

Stu­art is now hop­ing that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will give im­me­di­ate ap­proval for RHA CEOs to be­gin ne­go­ti­a­tions for the work­ers that the TTNNA rep­re­sents, stress­ing that Christ­mas should not be used as a rea­son for de­lay.

“We are ready and will­ing,” Stu­art said. “We are pre­pared to meet as ear­ly as to­mor­row (Mon­day), and we are will­ing to work through the Christ­mas pe­ri­od for the ben­e­fit of the health sec­tor.”

He ex­pressed con­fi­dence that ne­go­ti­a­tions could be con­clud­ed quick­ly, point­ing to the pace at which the re­cent Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion talks were set­tled.

Stu­art clar­i­fied that ne­go­ti­a­tions for RHA work­ers are con­duct­ed di­rect­ly with RHA CEOs, once au­tho­rised by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, and do not in­volve the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

Look­ing ahead, he said that once ne­go­ti­a­tions are com­plet­ed, RHA work­ers, many of whom are still ef­fec­tive­ly on 2013 salary lev­els, will be en­ti­tled to sig­nif­i­cant back­pay. In the in­ter­im, the TTNNA has called on the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er ex­tend­ing a $20,000 ad­vance on back­pay to RHA work­ers, sim­i­lar to what was grant­ed to pub­lic ser­vants.

“That would be a good show of faith,” Stu­art said. “The back­pay owed would far ex­ceed $20,000 in many cas­es, so it can sim­ply be de­duct­ed lat­er. It would go a long way in eas­ing the frus­tra­tion work­ers are feel­ing right now.”

Stu­art added that re­solv­ing the is­sue swift­ly is crit­i­cal, warn­ing that con­tin­ued de­lays will on­ly deep­en dis­rup­tions and place fur­ther strain on an al­ready frag­ile health­care sys­tem.