Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Idi Stu­art is once again ap­peal­ing to the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (TRHA) of­fi­cials for a meet­ing to iron out work­ing arrange­ments for reg­is­tered nurs­es hired to serve dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

The nurs­es, hired for six months orig­i­nal­ly, have been on the job for more than one year, with­out ben­e­fits like their nurs­ing coun­ter­parts, and are not paid sick and ma­ter­ni­ty leave, Stu­art said.

Stu­art said there might be a mass ex­o­dus of nurs­es na­tion­al­ly as the RHA’s do not treat nurs­es prop­er­ly.

“ The To­ba­go sit­u­a­tion is very con­cern­ing as those nurs­es are not en­ti­tled to any sup­port what­so­ev­er, and that is in breach of a num­ber of the laws in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said calls to the TRHA for a meet­ing on the nurse’s sit­u­a­tion left the as­so­ci­a­tion sore as the au­thor­i­ty agreed to on­ly one meet­ing be­fore last year’s gen­er­al elec­tions.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion wants spe­cif­ic con­tract terms for the nurs­es and feels the TRHA can do more un­der the ex­ist­ing arrange­ment.

“We told the TRHA of­fi­cials that it is un­ten­able that nurs­ing per­son­nel are con­sid­ered tem­po­rary em­ploy­ees and giv­en six months and one year con­tract. That is be­gin­ning to be a norm now in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Stu­art told Guardian Me­dia.

He added:” While they con­tin­ue to build per­ma­nent hos­pi­tals in Rox­bor­ough, Ari­ma, Point Fortin, Cou­va Chil­dren Hos­pi­tal, the Gov­ern­ment is re­fus­ing to make nurs­es per­ma­nent.”

He said that the TRHA al­ready met its quo­ta to hire nurs­es set by the gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, he said he won­dered why the quote re­mains, al­though more hos­pi­tals and health cen­tres were built.

“ What will hap­pen at the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal? Can the ex­ist­ing nurse quo­ta work ef­fec­tive­ly in that sit­u­a­tion so that al­ready burnt out nurs­es are forced to work more?”

Health Sec­re­tary Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion at yes­ter­day’s To­ba­go health up­date me­dia brief­ing.

“ At the TRHA, there is re­al­ly no va­can­cy, and so those per­sons who were hired specif­i­cal­ly to treat with the sit­u­a­tion we are cur­rent­ly in.”

ow­ev­er, she did not rule out hir­ing the nurs­es at the end of the pan­dem­ic. She al­so did not com­ment on whether the tem­po­rary work­ers’ con­tracts can be ad­just­ed.

Mean­while, two af­fect­ed nurs­es, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion that their iden­ti­ties not be re­vealed, said they are afraid to call in sick as they will lose more than $500 dai­ly from their salaries.

“ We are grate­ful we have jobs. We un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, the au­thor­i­ties must be fair to us too. We work just as hard and along­side nurs­es in all de­part­ments. Why are we treat­ed so bad­ly?”

As of yes­ter­day, there are 62 ac­tive COVID pos­i­tive cas­es in To­ba­go. It’s the largest num­ber of ac­tive cas­es since the pan­dem­ic be­gan last year. All COVID-pos­i­tive pa­tients are housed at a state-spon­sored fa­cil­i­ty.