With an in­crease in the num­ber of re­turn­ing na­tion­als to this coun­try last week­end, ad­di­tion­al pres­sures will be put on the na­tion’s health per­son­nel, who have been do­ing yeo­man ser­vice in the face of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

It has been a dif­fi­cult time for these pro­fes­sion­als and their fam­i­lies. As front­line health­care pro­fes­sion­als, they have been in the shoot­ing range so to speak of COVID-19, com­ing in di­rect con­tact with those who test pos­i­tive for the virus and those who are quar­an­tined.

No less a per­son than the prime min­is­ter him­self has paid trib­ute to the yeo­man ser­vice be­ing done by health­care pro­fes­sion­als dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

One would have thought that giv­en the role these pro­fes­sion­als played in en­sur­ing the coun­try flat­tened the COVID curve, the state would have con­sid­ered some kind of fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion for the risks they put them­selves and their fam­i­lies at to en­sure the coun­try staved off the virus.

Last week fol­low­ing a Cab­i­net meet­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia an­nounced a $20 mil­lion pay­out was ap­proved for teach­ers, and prin­ci­pals re­quired to at­tend class­es from Ju­ly 20 to Au­gust 20 to get stu­dents ready for the resched­uled Au­gust 20 SEA ex­am­i­na­tion.

That must have been a slap in the face for health­care pro­fes­sion­als, since it is no se­cret teach­ers have been on paid va­ca­tion since the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem was shut down in March and the min­istry was un­able to com­pel all of them to con­duct on­line class­es with their charges to fill the void.

While we salute the teach­ers who have been en­sur­ing stu­dents are in­deed ed­u­cat­ed dur­ing the COVID mea­sures, we ask the Gov­ern­ment why the na­tion’s health­care work­ers have not re­ceived sim­i­lar con­sid­er­a­tion.

Last Thurs­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art warned that hos­pi­tals could be­come ghost towns if the state did not ad­dress the health­care work­ers’ COVID emer­gency com­pen­sa­tion con­cerns. Mr Stu­art said the nurs­es were un­der­stand­ably up­set at the an­nounce­ment of stipends to teach­ers, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en their di­rect im­pact in the COVID fight.

In late April, fol­low­ing the death of a nurse at­tached to the COVID unit at the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal, the TTR­NA asked the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er a $1 mil­lion pay­out in the event any nurse los­es their life dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

The prime min­is­ter, re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from the Op­po­si­tion in the Par­lia­ment at that time, said no con­sid­er­a­tion was be­ing giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment to of­fer any ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion to health­care work­ers.

How­ev­er, more than a month lat­er, the PM must re­alise this is about treat­ing with a group of pro­fes­sion­als who played a huge part in the COVID fight.

Dr Row­ley did as­sure, how­ev­er, that front­line health­care work­ers would re­ceive the “best that the coun­try has to af­ford.” With­out doubt, with the largesse now promised to teach­ers, per­haps with an eye on forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, health care work­ers would be look­ing with in­ter­est to see what the coun­try can af­ford them. Af­ter, all they al­so form part of the elec­torate.