Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA), Idi Stu­art, has called for wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for nurs­es to be con­clud­ed by Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary 2026, de­scrib­ing the time­line as “non-ne­go­tiable.”

Speak­ing on The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Stu­art said, “With­in the first month or two, we would want the con­clu­sion of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, and at least be­gin to pay our new salaries ear­ly in 2026—Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary at the ab­solute lat­est. And that is non-ne­go­tiable.”

He added that the as­so­ci­a­tion is will­ing to meet over the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, in­clud­ing on Christ­mas Day, to en­sure talks are re­solved swift­ly, cit­ing what he de­scribed as a “flam­ma­ble” sit­u­a­tion in the health­care sec­tor.

Stu­art called on the Gov­ern­ment to give clear in­struc­tions to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) re­gard­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, say­ing this would en­sure wage dis­cus­sions are prop­er­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to work­ers and re­solved as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

He al­so is­sued a warn­ing to the new ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­flect­ing on the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. Stu­art at­trib­uted the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s loss in part to wage and salary is­sues.

“The num­ber one rea­son [for the elec­tion re­sults] was be­cause the PNM gov­ern­ment pushed through a salary in­crease for them­selves and de­nied work­ers a rea­son­able salary in­crease for the rest of the State sec­tor,” he said. “That same is­sue that had the en­tire State sec­tor up in arms pri­or to the elec­tions of April 2025 still ex­ists to­day.”

Stu­art clar­i­fied that the TTR­NA is not be­hind the spo­radic “rest and re­lax­ation” ac­tions re­port­ed at some health­care fa­cil­i­ties.

“We have no part to play in any rest and re­flec­tion, as it were. I have not heard that from the nurs­ing as­so­ci­a­tion quar­ters, nor have I heard any of the oth­er unions speak­ing on that is­sue,” he said.

He ex­plained that the ac­tions are be­ing dri­ven by in­di­vid­ual health­care work­ers ag­griev­ed over de­lays in back pay, rather than any of­fi­cial union di­rec­tive.

Stu­art warned that un­re­solved back pay is­sues and staffing short­ages could cause se­ri­ous dis­rup­tion to health­care ser­vices dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son. He de­scribed the mood among health­care work­ers as high­ly ag­griev­ed, with many ex­pect­ing back pay sim­i­lar to that re­ceived by pub­lic ser­vice work­ers.

“Up­on learn­ing that they may not be get­ting it at this time, it re­al­ly has sent shock­waves and anger. I can tell you the health sec­tor is on ten­der hooks right now. I’ve nev­er seen it this bad in terms of dis­en­chant­ment and de­mo­ti­va­tion,” Stu­art said, adding that the sit­u­a­tion could eas­i­ly spi­ral out of con­trol if not ad­dressed ur­gent­ly.

He said that fol­low­ing changes to the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s cov­er­age of re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty staff, nurs­es, doc­tors and dai­ly-paid work­ers now have their own rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions. How­ev­er, many oth­er health­care work­ers—in­clud­ing phar­ma­cists, so­cial work­ers, lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­ni­cians, month­ly at­ten­dants and dri­vers—re­main un­rep­re­sent­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Stu­art, these un­rep­re­sent­ed work­ers are con­cerned about whether they will re­ceive any fu­ture in­creas­es or ben­e­fits tied to pub­lic ser­vice agree­ments.

Ad­dress­ing staffing chal­lenges dur­ing the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, Stu­art not­ed that hos­pi­tals tra­di­tion­al­ly op­er­ate with skele­ton staff.

“If you cou­ple nor­mal leave with the lack of en­ti­tle­ment to back pay, it could cause se­vere dis­rup­tion with­in the health­care set­ting,” he said, adding that such dis­rup­tions are al­ready oc­cur­ring spo­rad­i­cal­ly, af­fect­ing surg­eries and pa­tient care.

On in­fra­struc­ture, Stu­art called for greater at­ten­tion to ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties, cau­tion­ing against di­vert­ing staff to new projects such as the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. He said this ex­ac­er­bates staffing short­ages and com­pro­mis­es pa­tient safe­ty.

“We are beg­ging for an in­crease in staff be­cause we are so short. It’s caus­ing deaths, it’s caus­ing lives to be lost, it’s caus­ing limbs to be lost,” he said.

Look­ing ahead to 2026, Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pri­or­i­ties in­clude con­clud­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, ad­dress­ing staffing short­ages and tack­ling in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges across the health sec­tor. He stressed the im­por­tance of stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion be­fore new projects are pur­sued to en­sure ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties can op­er­ate safe­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo for com­ment on Stu­art’s re­quest but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.