00:00Nurses across Trinidad and Tobago are observing National Nurses Week, even as they continue to face what the association sees,
00:09as complete disregard from the powers that be.
00:13Unfortunately, complete silence. It's really an eye-opener. Never in my history as the union president we have seen such
00:27silence when it comes to the issue of salary negotiations, salary increases.
00:34And we really hope at some point in time the Honorable Minister of Health or the Minister of Finance or
00:41the Prime Minister would finally come out and just make a statement which can reassure all health care workers and
00:52reassure them that they would not continue to work on their 2013 salaries indefinitely and at some measure of relief
01:01would come to them in the not-too-distant future.
01:04Nevertheless, nurses continue to apply pressure as they lobby for better terms and conditions of employment. Meantime, the association is
01:14doing its part to invest in its membership.
01:17Internationally, UK, Canada, Abu Dhabi, everywhere else, you would find nursing and middle-free personnel engaging in a number of
01:28skills that generally we allow doctors to do in Trinidad and Tobago.
01:33So, we are really on a drive to make that push to allow nursing and middle-free personnel to practice
01:42to their true potential.
01:45Once this happens, you would see it will redone to shorter waiting times, improve quality of care for patients, and
01:55our overall better experience within the health care system.
01:59So, yeah, we are really on a drive over the next few years to, one, amend the Nursing Personnel Act
02:08to allow that latitude for nursing and middle-free personnel to increase their scope of practice and also to enforce
02:16continuing education,
02:18something that the association has been championing over the last decade, but unfortunately, and surprisingly, successive governments have not funded
02:29fit to ensure continuing education is mandatory.
02:34International Nurses Day will be observed on May 12th, under the theme, Empowered Nurses Save Lives.
02:42So, when we talk about empowered nurses, what does that actually mean?
02:46It means nurses who are empowered through their training, qualification, who are actually empowered to give, through science and the
02:58art of nursing, to give optimum care to our patients.
03:01And that is what nurses do every day, 24-7, we give care to our patients.
03:10Sometimes that care may not be the way you expect it, but at the end of the day, we are
03:16there, we show up every day, and we give care to you and your loved ones.
03:22Renasa Cutting, TV6 News.
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