The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been barred from en­rolling new stu­dents in its nurs­ing and mid­wifery schools.

In late Ju­ly, the T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion led by its Pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art ob­tained an in­junc­tion from High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran against the min­istry and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of its sub­stan­tive ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the le­gal­i­ty of both schools.

How­ev­er, the in­junc­tion on­ly took ef­fect af­ter the min­istry com­plet­ed its cy­cle of ad­mis­sions for both schools on Au­gust 30.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the min­istry in June, the as­so­ci­a­tion’s lawyer Aaron Seaton claimed that the min­istry’s School of Nurs­ing (Ba­sic and Psy­chi­atric), School of Com­mu­ni­ty Health and Post Ba­sic Nurs­ing Ed­u­ca­tion, and School of Mid­wifery be­gan op­er­at­ing with­out be­ing reg­is­tered un­der the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Act.

It al­so con­tend­ed that the schools were not des­ig­nat­ed by the Nurs­ing Coun­cil of T&T as lo­ca­tions for train­ing nurs­es, nurse in­terns, mid­wives, and nurs­ing as­sis­tants as re­quired un­der the Nurs­ing Per­son­nel Act.

The coun­cil con­sists of 16 mem­bers. Six are se­lect­ed by the Min­is­ter of Health, nine are elect­ed by the over 10,000 mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion and the Chief Nurs­ing Of­fi­cer serves as an ex-of­fi­cio mem­ber.

The as­so­ci­a­tion claimed that the Min­is­ter of Health al­so did not ap­prove the in­sti­tu­tions.

The as­so­ci­a­tion sought the in­junc­tion af­ter the min­istry con­tin­ued to in­vite ap­pli­ca­tions for ad­mis­sions de­spite be­ing warned by it (the as­so­ci­a­tion) over the al­leged is­sues.

“Notwith­stand­ing our pre-ac­tion let­ter, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has not ceased its op­er­a­tions of the nurs­ing schools. This is de­spite the fact that they have not been reg­is­tered with the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of T&T, and de­spite the fact that they are op­er­at­ing in breach of the Nurs­ing Per­son­nel Act.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Stu­art not­ed that stu­dents, who re­cent­ly en­rolled and are cur­rent­ly en­gaged in pro­grammes at the schools, would on­ly be af­fect­ed if his as­so­ci­a­tion is even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in its sub­stan­tive case.

He main­tained that the as­so­ci­a­tion was con­cerned that the schools are of­fer­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion but not uni­ver­si­ty de­grees in nurs­ing and mid­wifery as cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean, and COSTAATT.

He claimed that such ter­tiary de­grees are the min­i­mum stan­dard re­quired for both nurs­es and mid­wives in the Caribbean.