00:00 A fresh layer of concerns and questions has come to the fore as it relates to the circumstances
00:06 surrounding the deaths of seven babies at the Port of Spain Neonatal Intensive Care
00:10 Unit.
00:12 This time, the Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nurses Association is weighing in, citing
00:17 issues of staff shortages and credentials.
00:21 The Trinidad and Tobago National Nursing Association calls for the publication of the number of
00:30 nursing personnel who are attached to the NICU Department of the Port of Spain General
00:37 Hospital.
00:38 We would want to know if the internationally accepted and locally implemented policy in
00:46 terms of patient to staff ratio within the NICU Department of one nurse to one patient
00:52 was being followed.
00:53 Also, there is the lack of supervision.
00:56 A lot of these RHAs do not have the number of nursing personnel, do not have the number
01:04 of experienced nursing personnel because what is one thing to have nursing personnel so
01:10 they could come out and say, "Yes, we have the required number of nursing personnel."
01:14 But are they trained in the specific specialty?
01:19 And currently as we speak, there is no nursing specialty accredited nursing school to teach
01:30 the neonatal intensive care.
01:32 Stewart says there are some nurses who have acquired specialty training in some areas.
01:38 But he notes there is no specialist nurses registry in Trinidad and Tobago.
01:43 We don't have a registry for specialist nurses.
01:46 So that should be one of the priority areas the Ministry of Health and the Nursing Council
01:51 need to work on, a registry for specialist nurses.
01:54 And with that registry, you would end up having a mandatory continuing education for those
02:00 specialist nurses.
02:03 So we have nurses who are trained in specialist areas and we have nurses who just work in
02:09 specialist areas.
02:10 They may not even be trained.
02:13 And more than likely, you would have that in this very neutral department.
02:17 He says it is obvious that there was a serious shortcoming at the unit as it pertains to
02:23 hygiene and sanitation.
02:26 He's calling on the Northwest Regional Health Authority to come clean.
02:30 How often they would be swabbing the area for infections.
02:35 It can be just now swabbing after the incident occurred.
02:39 This has to be an ongoing thing.
02:43 Every 48 hours you're supposed to be doing swab analysis of the area to identify if there's
02:47 an increase or decrease in particular infections or bacteria.
02:52 So it cannot be a knee-jerk response.
02:55 The medical chief of staff must be held to account.
02:58 And if it means that person is doing the honorable thing and resigning, well then so be it.
03:04 Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
03:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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