Health Minister Fuad Khan says he will be bringing 1,000 nurses from India and an additional 1,000 nurses from the Philippines to work in local hospitals as he fears local nurses do not want to work. He said this in the face of a walkout by nurses at the Sangre Grande District Hospital, yesterday, amidst complaints of unaddressed health and safety concerns. The complaints were previously raised by Public Services Association president Watson Duke in February.
As early as 10 am nurses started leaving the facility, handing over keys to the pharmacy as patients waited in confusion to be assisted. “Nobody said anything to us,” said one patient, Ashley Nicholas. “I just saw nurses packing up to leave and at one point there was only the one doctor in the emergency department.” Nicholas said she overheard a doctor on the phone say that nurses were protesting. “I was told I cannot get my X-ray or ultrasound done. They made an announcement that they won’t be seeing any new patients today.”
By 2 pm most of the nurses at the hospital had left. The PSA represents the nurses, and president of the association Watson Duke was at the hospital yesterday to speak to staff. In an interview, Duke said the PSA wrote the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) and requested it provide documents informing members that the building was safe. He said the ERHA did not acknowledge this correspondence. “The CEO gave us no copies of documents about the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) issues. We were asked to be reasonable.
“We stressed the importance of approved Town and Country Plans, fire certificate and engineers reports,” Duke said. “We are concerned that patients’ and workers’ lives are at risk.”He said workers at the hospital were “not feeling well” yesterday and had removed themselves from the “unsafe place.” The action by nurses began on Tuesday evening with some refusing to work. Duke said the PSA wanted to settle the issue with the ERHA and awaited communication.
“They are working employees beyond the eight-hour work day and five-day work week without additional compensation. Nurses are working 12-hour shifts six days per week, They are assaulting the bodies of our members. We are prepared to fight this matter until the wheels fall off and we want to meet with the RHA as soon as they are ready to discuss this.”
Fuad: Duke is a terrorist
In a telephone interview about the situation at the hospital yesterday, Khan called Duke a terrorist and compared him to Islamic militant group ISIS. “He is terrorising the patients and I am not going to take this one lying down. I will bring nurses from all over the place to work in the hospitals.” He said the nurses were wrong to leave the hospitals, that their action was illegal and violated Section 14 of the OSH Act.
“They are breaking the law and they can get fired,” Khan said. He said if the nurses didn’t care about the patients he would bring in 1,000 nurses from India and 1,000 nurses from the Philippines “because our nurses don’t want to work.” He said there was a process for nurses to complain, which included writing to the chief inspector at OSHA and taking the matter to the industrial court. Khan said the only people suffering were the patients.
