Firefighters, sanitation and postal workers and nursing personnel at the Maternity Department, Port-of-Spain General Hospital, embarked on protest action in Port-of-Spain yesterday, as they pressed for resolution to various issues.
The nurses, who embarked on industrial action on Monday after an attack on one of their colleagues, continued their protest as they expressed disgust over Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan’s questioning of their commitment to the job. However, the other groups started their actions yesterday.
The angry nurses yesterday turned the tables on Khan by asking him if he had ever faced the hardships they currently experience on a daily basis, including verbal and physical abuse by patients, threats to their lives and even acts of vandalism and theft at the hospital.
Insisting their two-day action did not affect the level of care to patients, the nurses began protesting outside the Maternity Department from 8 am and continued during a two-hour security meeting attended by president of the T&T Registered Nurses Association (TTRNA), Gwendolyn Loobie-Snaggs, general manager of Nursing Care and the head of security at the facility.
But nurses were unhappy with Khan’s suggestion that the TTRNA was in a “war” with the Public Services Association (PSA) “over turf” and the right to defend nursing personnel across the country.
“The minister's tone appears to have become anti-nurse but despite all the abuse we face on a daily basis, we continue to provide care to patients under whatever conditions we have to endure,” Loobie-Snaggs said, noting that the minister seemed not to be taking their issues seriously.
The association is also calling for an apology from Khan.
Loobie-Snaggs confirmed that Heller Security Services, the firm which previously provided security for the ward, was yesterday replaced by Security Analyst Services (SAS), which is owned by former national security minister Gary Griffith.
According to its FaceBook profile, the SAS range of services includes security officers, special event security, VIP security, cash in transit, sport event security, residential and commercial security management.
SAS officers took up duty at the Maternity Department yesterday morning.
Loobie-Snaggs said the SAS officers would now be subject to specialist training “relative to the environment they will be operating in.”
New security measures
On Monday, nurses complained that security officers previously assigned to the facility had refused to intervene in confrontations between medical personnel and patients, as they claimed they were only assigned to preserve the physical environment.
Heartened by the fact that work had already begun regarding the installation of panic buttons and closed-circuit television cameras throughout the Maternity Department yesterday, Loobie-Snaggs said that was among the promises made on Monday to improve security measures.
She said other measures would take longer to be introduced but said she hoped the camera network and panic button systems would both be completed by mid-May. Security escorts during the night were also implemented yesterday.
The posting of liability notices on the compound warning of penalties to patients who abuse nursing personnel had bene put on hold, Loobie-Snaggs said, as they were awaiting advice from the legal department.
Other measures, such as the establishment of a police post and the introduction of a liability form to be signed by patients, are also being considered.
Other personnel yesterday confirmed that workmen were seen on the premises installing electrical wiring and making notes of the various access points into and out of the facility, as the North West Regional Health Authority moves towards fencing some of the areas which ought not to be accessed by the public.
Addressing statements by Khan that the TTRNA and the PSA were unclear as to which union represented nursing personnel, vice- chairman of the Northern Branch of the TTRNA, Kerne Ramnath, said:
“The minister's statements were erroneous and reckless. This is not a battle between unions. The PSA is free to speak but the TTRNA is a legitimate union for and behalf of nurses in the country. We are not at war with the PSA.”
On Monday, Loobie-Snaggs revealed that the TTRNA had officially received certification as a trade union in July 2014 and was free to represent nursing personnel attached to all public institutions in T&T.
On the threat by Khan to replace local nurses with foreign ones, Ramnath said although there was a great disparity in the terms and conditions for local and foreign nurses, the abuse by patients would remain the same regardless of to whom it was directed.
He said Government was spending millions of dollars to ensure foreign nurses enjoyed greater benefits than local nurses but they were the ones currently “holding up the hospitals.”