Building a Better Jamaica

Thursday, September 02, 2010
Jamaica Observer

THE Ministry of Labour has summoned the island's public sector nurses to an emergency meeting today, following reports yesterday of higher than normal levels of absenteeism among the health practitioners.

The meeting, which is scheduled for 10:00 am, will take place at the ministry's North Street, downtown Kingston office and will be chaired by Labour Minister Pearnel Charles. Representatives of the ministries of health, finance and the public service, as well as the University Hospital of the West Indies are expected to attend.

The labour minister's action came after reports that operations at several hospitals were hampered as several nurses failed to show up for their shift — a day after the Edith Allwood-Anderson-led Nurses Association of Jamaica vowed to step up their campaign for Government to pay them their retroactive sums and implement a reclassification programme.

In a press release yesterday, the labour ministry said it was "prepared to work with all parties to arrive at an amicable resolution of outstanding matters".

Meanwhile, in a related issue, Health Minister Rudyard Spencer sought to clarify statements he made on a radio programme yesterday morning regarding the nurses' actions.

According to Spencer, his remark that he was surprised at the action of the nurses as the practitioners had indicated "no feeling of unrest or intention to take any form of action" during a meeting with the South East Regional Health Authority on Monday.

"I simply expressed my surprise at the industrial action, while explaining that I was in a meeting with the nurses at which no indication was made to me of any feeling of unrest or intention to take any form of action," said Spencer.

"I reject any notion implying that I met with the nurses to discuss reclassification and retroactive payments. The meeting was about Licensed Practical Nurses at the Kingston Public Hospital," the health minister said.