The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Nurses Union has threatened to file a trade dispute over “poor” working conditions at public health facilities after several nurses were left seriously injured on the job last month.

BNU President Amancha Williams told The Tribune that safety at the workplace, among other issues, continues to be a cause of concern for healthcare workers, who have been calling for upgrades to infrastructure in public health.

 She also claimed that in the past month there have been several industrial accidents involving nurses.

 “We’ve been recently having issues with infrastructure in the hospitals such as PMH,” Ms Williams said. “We’ve had an electrical shock in ICU by a nurse and a doctor. We’ve had a nurse fall through the floor in Legacy (Ward). Now all of these nurses and their supervisors had previous complaints about the environment or the safety about the workplace.”

 According to the BNU president, the industrial accidents occurred in September. She also explained that one particular incident has left one nurse unable to walk properly.

 “It is serious,” Ms Williams added. “We have a nurse home right now from an industrial injury. Nobody called. An electrical shock at Baillou Hill Road Clinic left the nurse with challenges, using a walker and then somebody gon’ tell me it’s due to wearing a white shirt and white pants and your shoes (caused) static shock. Then you gon’ tell the BNU to leave it alone?”

What’s most disappointing, Ms Williams said, is the fact that the industrial mishaps could have been avoided.

“We’ve chatted, recorded and we asked for various persons to come and check to ensure the safety but here again, these industrial injuries could’ve been avoided (if we had) ongoing assessments and we still have air condition issues and other challenges right here in Nassau,” she said.

“The Colina building where we service the community, some persons come in with symptoms sometimes and no air conditioning. The nurses were working four hours and now they’re back to eight hours and still no air condition and it’s been two months. It’s ridiculous and for me, it’s unacceptable.”

She said nurses are also upset about a number of outstanding promotions and long overdue payments - a situation that has lowered staff morale.

“We still have an outstanding of two increments and a lump sum and we’re asking when is that going to be paid,” the BNU president added.

“That’s the question I’ve been asking the new minister. Just give us a date. We know the Prime Minister stated in his speech that the increments will resume in December or in January. I understand that, but I need to see in black and white when the increment is going to be given because the increment was promised from July. The lump sum was promised. Please let me know when PHA is going to pay the lump sum and double increment.

“... We know we have some outstanding issues that are in the commission that need to be rectified. We know some bond letters need to be signed from the Ministry of Health and so we’re challenged because these persons from on this listing, this was from 2015 and so they’ve waited a long period of time. Almost eight to ten years they’ve been waiting for these promotions. Okay, so we have a backlog but we’ve spoken to (Minister of State for Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle) and we’ve agreed to come every three weeks until we rectify and sort out our issues.”

Regarding the honorariums, Ms Williams said there are still some workers who have not yet received the payments. However, she said the union is grateful for what has been given so far.

As for what’s next for nurses, Ms Williams said the union is considering filing a trade dispute if their concerns are not addressed.

When contacted for comment yesterday, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville confirmed the industrial accidents and said an investigation has since been launched.

“I’m quite familiar with the two incidents and those cases are now being looked at very, very aggressively to get the full understanding,” he told The Tribune. “Both of them are on the job injuries and the normal protocol is for them to be reported to the National Insurance Board. With that being said, NIB is reviewing them and in one instance, the review time was a bit delayed and it was important for us to intervene. National Insurance is now addressing the matter and hopefully the complete situation will be resolved in short order.”

Speaking to the working conditions, Dr Darville admitted there is a need for upgrades in public health which he said the government hopes to address soon.

He said: “In many of the clinics there is a desperate need for essential upgrades and our tertiary facilities as well as the clinics. We are aware of the necessary upgrades and we now have supplementary budgetary funding that we will be debating very shortly to address many of these essential upgrades to ensure that our healthcare teams are able to work in a safe and decent environment and so the reality is the hospital is engaging with a lot of challenges as a result of the physical plan and it’s our responsibility as a new government to address these concerns which we are already in the promise of doing.”

 Pertaining to nurses’ claims on outstanding promotions, etc, Dr Darville said upon coming to office, he learned some of the union’s issues of concern were not budgeted under the previous administration.

 However, he said the Davis administration is committed to addressing the problems.

 Dr Darville continued: “There’s no question that we need to come to the table to address their promotions and other concerns... but on coming to office, we realised that some of the concerns were not budgeted and this is one the reasons why my permanent secretary and myself had to sit down in the early stages of planning to ensure that some stuff relating to budgetary allocations are brought to the Ministry of Health as soon as possible so that we can not only address the challenges we have at the hospital with the physical plan, but also to address the promotions and what that means in terms of dollars and cents.”

 The Tribune understands a meeting between the various unions, including the BNU, and Dr Darville, is scheduled for later this week.