THE MURDER of a daily-paid worker on the grounds of the St James Medical Centre was another cause for concern by nurses in public health.
The attack came mere months after masked gunmen entered the Port of Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) on June 2, killing one man at the hospital and injuring another. This incident was a spillover from a shooting hours earlier in Gonzales, which left three other men dead.
Security at PoSGH improved after that incident, but this doesn't seem to have happened at other public hospitals.
The invasion of a major hospital should have prompted institutional changes in security protocols throughout the public health sector. Hospitals shouldn't be vulnerable to becoming war zones.
Jamaal Watts was cutting grass at the back of the St James compound when two men, one with a rifle and the other with a shotgun, killed him and then escaped in a car. The murder is another trigger for nurses who face long periods of contract employment and problems with pension payments and increments owed to them.
TT Registered Nurses Association (TTRNA) president Idi Stuart was unhappy with the results of a meeting between the union and regional health authorities on Tuesday. "As fast as we train (nurses) they leave," Mr Stuart said on September 4.
The TTRNA wants a serious effort by the state to retain locally trained nurses who have proven to be popular with the metropoles, but the union argues that they can't even get the Government to deliver on existing agreements.
The union estimates that there is a shortfall of more than 3,000 nurses in the public health sector. The union wants more avenues for permanent employment, scholarships and grants for post graduate programmes, amendments to the Nursing Personnel Act, improvements to compensation for nurses and midwives and new nursing levels suggested by the TTRNA in its draft collective agreement.
According to Mr Stuart, the Health Minister has expressed doubts about putting the National Health Services Accreditation Authority Bill and the Nursing Personnel Act on the legislative agenda because it has already been set. That's an unfortunate position, suggesting that the Government has legislative priorities that supersede the literally life-saving role of nurses in the public health sector.
The insecurity of contract employment, poor promotion prospects and pay levels led to more than 100 nurses leaving TT in 2021 for better prospects after being recruited by services in the UK, Canada, and the US, according to the TTRNA. The union also has concerns about the NWRHA, where 19 per cent of nurses left between 2020-2022, almost double the percentage of nurses lost – an average of 9.4 per cent – quitting the other RHAs.
If the Government can't respond immediately to address these concerns, it must send a more decisive and compelling signal to its nurses that they matter.
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