A nurse at­tached to the St Anns Hos­pi­tal was laid to rest yes­ter­day, af­ter ap­par­ent­ly los­ing a bat­tle with com­pli­ca­tions caused by COVID-19. 

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA), Idi Stu­art, how­ev­er, not­ed he was un­cer­tain as to the source of his in­fec­tion. 

“We can­not con­firm that it’s di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to COVID-19, how­ev­er, we are aware that he would have con­tract­ed the virus...over the course of last year and would have had to be ad­mit­ted. We un­der­stand that he would have re­cov­ered from that ini­tial in­fec­tion, how­ev­er, the com­pli­ca­tions since then had placed a great strain on his health and un­for­tu­nate­ly, af­ter about a three-month bat­tle with those com­pli­ca­tions he sad­ly passed away,” he said. 

The news, Stu­art said, sent a huge shock­wave through the nurs­ing com­mu­ni­ty and the as­so­ci­a­tion is deeply sad­dened by his pass­ing. He said he hopes that the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty gives the nurse’s fam­i­ly the ben­e­fits owed to him.

“We are part of a manda­to­ry con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion plan which has not been go­ing to rel­a­tives when their loved ones day in du­ty,” he said.

“That is in the law and that is what’s sup­posed to hap­pen but we al­ways get from the Au­thor­i­ties that they are au­dit­ing the books... and the rel­a­tives have not been re­ceiv­ing the dis­burse­ment.”

Stu­art said it was dif­fi­cult know­ing how the nurse would have con­tract­ed the virus but not­ed that dur­ing the time he con­tract­ed it, there was an out­break at St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal where he was sta­tioned as a psy­chi­atric nurse.

“But we can­not say with any lev­el of cer­tain­ty (his in­fec­tion) was di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to (the) work­place or on the out­side,” he said. 

Stu­art said that if the nurse’s pass­ing is con­firmed to be linked to his COVID-19 in­fec­tion, “it would mean a first for Trinidad and To­ba­go.” 

He said Bar­ba­dos re­cent­ly lost their first nurs­ing fa­tal­i­ty. (RK)