EHS meets with Labour Ministry to resolve impasse

UP TO late yesterday, officials from the Ministry of Labour were meeting with emergency health technicians to resolve an industrial impasse which has seen the country’s emergency ambulance service grind to a halt.

Yesterday, only one ambulance was providing a service in all of South Trinidad. The Emergency Medical Services of Trinidad and Tobago confirmed to Newsday yesterday that almost all of the 270 medical technicians were not working. Officials denied that supervisors were being trained to perform the jobs of the technicians in order to ensure a level of ambulance service to the population. The technicians are protesting the lack of medical supplies to perform their duties; cramped conditions of their bases and safety in the performance of their duties. Yesterday, a delegation from the medical technicians’ representative body, Pre-Hospital Care Providers Association, met with representatives of the Ministry of Labour at Riverside Plaza in Port-of-Spain. Also sitting in at the meeting as industrial adviser to the medical technicians was Vincent Cabrera, general secretary of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers Trade Union. The meeting was still in progress up to late yesterday.