Min­is­ter of Health Dr. Lack­ram Bo­doe has giv­en a com­mit­ment to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA), to en­sure “a strong, fair and re­spon­sive” health­care sys­tem.

Min­is­ter Bo­doe made the pledge dur­ing a meet­ing with TTNNA Pres­i­dent, Idi Stu­art, to dis­cuss key is­sues af­fect­ing nurs­es with­in the pub­lic health sys­tem. Al­so present in that meet­ing was Dr. Rishad Seecher­an, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health

The meet­ing took place at the Min­istry’s Head­quar­ters on Mon­day 19 May 2025.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment from the Health Min­istry, the meet­ing fo­cused on three core ar­eas crit­i­cal to nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als: staffing, train­ing, and work­ing con­di­tions.

“All par­ties ac­knowl­edged the cur­rent chal­lenges faced by nurs­es and reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to iden­ti­fy­ing and im­ple­ment­ing so­lu­tions that en­hance health­care de­liv­ery while pri­or­i­tiz­ing the well-be­ing of both pa­tients and health­care work­ers,” the re­lease said.

Min­is­ter Bo­doe com­mend­ed Stu­art for his con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy and em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of stake­hold­er en­gage­ment in strength­en­ing the na­tion’s health­care sys­tem.

The Min­is­ter ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Mr. Stu­art’s ad­vo­ca­cy and re­it­er­at­ed the Min­istry’s open­ness to con­tin­ued en­gage­ment with stake­hold­ers to strength­en the na­tion’s pub­lic health sys­tem.

“Our nurs­es are the back­bone of the pub­lic health sys­tem, and it is on­ly through open, re­spect­ful di­a­logue can we mean­ing­ful­ly ad­dress their chal­lenges,” said Min­is­ter Bo­doe. “I val­ue the in­put of the TTNNA and re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to en­sure that both our health­care pro­fes­sion­als and our pa­tients are sup­port­ed by a sys­tem that is strong, fair, and re­spon­sive.”

The Min­istry of Health reaf­firmed its ded­i­ca­tion to on­go­ing di­a­logue and co­op­er­a­tion with the TTNNA as part of its broad­er ef­forts to im­prove the health­care land­scape in Trinidad and To­ba­go.