00:00Former Health Minister Dr. Fouad Khan says concerns about overtime payments may stem from a limited pool of nurses repeatedly
00:08rotating through shifts, potentially excluding others from access to overtime opportunities.
00:15He notes that tensions between the NCRHA chairman, Dr. Tim Gopising, and the Nurses Association have now become increasingly confrontational.
00:26However, he adds that announcing that some nurses make over $60,000 to $80,000 from overtime is not the
00:35solution either.
00:36Nurses play a very important role in the medical system. And I learned a lot from nurses when I was
00:44a junior doctor. So they are very important.
00:47So you don't just drop a big stick and say that the money you were making, so then you start
00:53to attack the money that you're making, and you expose it publicly and make...
00:58You see, politics can go one way, but you have to understand that politics could be for opposition, not for
01:08nursing care and health care.
01:10Dr. Khan tells the Morning Edition he never believed the RHAs were a wise decision.
01:16I've always maintained that the RHA system is a failure, and you have too many chiefs in too many small
01:23areas.
01:24You need one RHA for Trinidad and one RHA for Tobago. So you can move nurses around the system.
01:32As it is now, because you have North, Central, North, West, Eastern and South, you cannot move nurses throughout the
01:40regions.
01:40When there are shortages, or you can't move doctors, you can't do anything because of the boundaries.
01:46TTNNA President Edie Stewart warns of possible protest and advised nursing personnel to avoid hospitals and emergency facilities operated by
01:56the NCRHA.
01:58And Dr. Gopi Singh maintains that medical staff employed by the regional health authorities do not fall under the association's
02:06direct authority.
02:07But, Dr. Khan tells us, the RHAs can make their own changes.
02:14RHAs are companies. They are not designed to be under the total control of the Ministry of Health.
02:22So our RHA system and our Board of Directors could put things in place to change, manage the remuneration of
02:31the nursing, doctors and everybody to be attractive to such an extent so that a lot more nurses and doctors
02:39will enter.
02:40Dr. Khan insists that the ongoing crisis in the health sector demands nothing less than a complete and sweeping overhaul
02:50of the entire system.
02:52The only way out of this mess is to repeal the Industrial Court Act and put everybody who wants to
03:01have industrial problems under the normal court system and you will get this thing moving.
03:07Once you have an industrial court, it is fraught with all this type of movement and at the end of
03:15the day you will find that people will not pull their weight because they could get protection from the Industrial
03:20Court and the unions.
03:22Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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