JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A 92-year-old re­tired nurse and for­mer nurs­ing tu­tor is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to recog­nise the val­ue of nurs­es by en­sur­ing they are paid salaries that al­low them to ad­e­quate­ly sup­port their fam­i­lies.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia at the open­ing of the nurs­es ex­hib­it at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) yes­ter­day, Yvonne Pil­grim said from 1952 to present, nurs­es have had to im­pro­vise as there was al­ways a lack of re­sources.

The ex­hib­it comes days be­fore Nurs­es’ Week, which starts next Sun­day.

Pil­grim said it is due to the ded­i­ca­tion to pa­tients that nurs­es con­tin­ue work­ing, and it is that ded­i­ca­tion that should be prop­er­ly com­pen­sat­ed.

“Nurs­es have al­ways been un­der­val­ued. Lack of recog­ni­tion of the im­por­tance of the nurse. Nurs­ing is the on­ly cat­e­go­ry of work­er that is with the pa­tient 24-7. They are meet­ing the needs of the pa­tient.”

She added that dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, nurs­es were the ones risk­ing their lives and that of their fam­i­lies to help the na­tion.

Asked what ad­vice she would give to the Gov­ern­ment to set­tle the on­go­ing im­passe, Pil­grim said they should show ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

“I would ad­vise the present Gov­ern­ment to be very cog­nizant of the val­ue of nurs­ing. If you do not ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue of an in­di­vid­ual who is giv­ing their all to the pa­tient, with the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, you should be cog­nizant of the fact that if you do not help the nurse to keep her­self healthy, eat well, meet the needs of the fam­i­ly, how then, if you keep that nurse on a 2013 salary, how do you ex­pect him or her to be able to sur­vive? I think it’s a lot to ask.”

Pil­grim said nurs­es have al­ways had to im­pro­vise, a tes­ta­ment to their re­silience.

“We’ve al­ways had to work with lack of equip­ment, lack of sup­plies, lack of num­bers. But the pa­tient was the im­por­tant one. So, you had to ( im­pro­vise), we coined the word im­pro­vise. We learned how to im­pro­vise to use what was avail­able in or­der to meet the needs of the client or pa­tient.”

Nurs­es are cur­rent­ly en­gaged in a two-month-long to­tal nurs­ing which man­dates that they care for up to six pa­tients per nurse, where ap­plic­a­ble.

T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art rub­bished the claims by Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe that the on­go­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tions is not af­fect­ing the sec­tor. Stu­art in­vit­ed Bo­doe to vis­it the wards to see the staff short­age and the strain nurs­es and oth­er health­care work­ers are un­der. He called on Gov­ern­ment to bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to in­tro­duce nurs­ing prac­ti­tion­ers, which would al­low nurs­es to di­ag­nose ail­ments and pre­scribe med­ica­tion, some­thing Nurs­ing Coun­cil Reg­is­trar Chris Craig­well says would work well in rur­al ar­eas where pa­tients are usu­al­ly seen by nurs­es more than doc­tors. He said with the on­go­ing im­passe, this may not come to fruition soon.

Guardian Me­dia called and mes­saged Leader of Gov­ern­ment busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath for a com­ment on if and when such leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment for de­bate, but up to press time there was no re­sponse.