00:00Nurses have been protesting for better terms and conditions for years.
00:05Now the Trinidad and Tobago National Nurses Association has taken matters into its own hands.
00:20The National Nurses Credit Union is for nurses by nurses and is expected to greatly improve the quality of nurses' lives.
00:29Because nursing and married free personnel are so poorly paid, so poorly compensated,
00:36we have to continuously find a number of ways to be able to supplement their salaries,
00:45to be able to qualify for loans.
00:48They are unable to go to the normal financial institutions and qualify for a mortgage, a car,
00:53any sort of loan, really, on the temporary forms of employment.
00:58Still a number of our colleagues continue to operate under a number of short-term arrangements.
01:05He laments that while nurses are essential workers, their salary is less than that of other essential workers.
01:13When nurses are not on duty, the health of the quality of care that the patient gets is severely compromised.
01:24And it would have been pointed out within the recent deaths at the Port of Spain General Hospital NICU department,
01:32where there was a 29% compliance in terms of the WHO metrics, in terms of the required number of nursing staff.
01:41And they pointed out that as the main problem within TNT.
01:45Stewart further notes that the UNC-led government had committed to ameliorating nurses' terms and conditions in its manifesto.
01:54We would hold them to account for that.
01:57And in fact, we expect to complete that exercise within 2025.
02:02We are not allowed, not willing to go beyond 2025 with continuing to work on 2013 salaries.
02:10The association has written to the Health Minister and the Tertiary Education Minister requesting meetings.
02:17But they're also asking for a one-on-one with the Prime Minister.
02:21While we want a minister and we have sent off that correspondence to the Honorable Minister, Dr. Lacron Bodo,
02:27we want to speak with the Honorable Prime Minister.
02:31Because only we could really express the challenges in the detail we would like to, to the person who is the ultimate decision-maker.
02:40So we want that opportunity.
02:42And indeed, while we have not gotten back a formal response from any of them, we are indeed hopeful.
02:49Renessa Katting, TV6 News.
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