Nurses protest slow negotiations

OVER 100 nurses employed by the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) engaged in  protest action yesterday, gathered outside the SWRHA headquarters to demand why salary negotiations had not been completed as yet. The protesting nurses claimed that a high ranking SWRHA official, who met with them, hurled obscenities at them. They claimed they were also threatened with being forcefully removed from the compound. All of this treatment, the nurses said, while they were peaceful, unlike their North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) colleagues, engaged in boisterous protest action over similar issues earlier this year.

One of the protesting nurses, who had gathered at the SWRHA’s Paradise Pasture, San Fernando headquarters, said the SWRHA promised to address their concerns, including a proposed salary increase of 15 percent, an incentive and standardisation increase and retroactive payments. “All of our concerns were supposed to have been discussed at a meeting last Friday, but the SWRHA officials cancelled that meeting, so nurses agreed to come this morning and, in a peaceful manner, find out what the keepback is,” the representative said. He added that discussions with the SWRHA Human Resource Department had been ongoing since last November.

“Everyone wonders why nurses are leaving the profession in droves, well it is because of this,” he said. The representative claimed their enquiries had been met with hostility from a senior SWRHA official and said an official verbally abused a male nurse and threatened to “put out” the nurses from the compound. “We are professionals who expect to be treated like professionals, but instead we are treated in a sub-standard manner,” he said, adding nurses had already performed their duties before assembling at the administration building.