PRESS CONFERENCE    23 May 2001

    This morning the Progressive Liberal Party wishes to express its grave concern for both the employees and the Bahamian public as a result of the recent events at the public health facilities in The Bahamas.  This has a personal touch for me, in that, my father is gravely ill and in the process of seeking to arrange health care for him at the Princess Margaret Hospital on Monday 21 May, the treating physician was informed that the Princess Margaret would not be admitting any patients on that day because of an alleged sick out at the hospital by the nurses. It was then that I realized that there was a problem at the hospital.
     This appears to be the first time that nurses have had to take industrial action and it reflects badly on the Government, who despite creating a public corporation to run the hospitals appears to be firmly in control of the hospitals. The Government’s omissions are putting people’s lives at stake.  Generally, we must say that there is too much unrest in the country.  And every problem requires industrial action for the Government to act to solve labour problems. This is an unacceptable state of affairs.
     The immediate and knee jerk response of many is to blame the nurses, but we urge the public to take a more considered approach.  Nurses are dedicated to the care of the sick and for nurses to have to resort to direct action does not speak well for the way the Bahamas Government has managed the public hospital.  This is yet again an example of the share disrespect and disregard which the Government for working men and women in this country and their representatives. In fact, it is remarkable that on Sunday 20th May, things apparently had broken down so much between the nurses and the Government that the Government had to resort to the threat of legal consequences if they engaged in a sick out.
     We urge the Government to amicably with the nurses and treat them as professionals in resolving their outstanding issues.  Our briefings indicate that the issues are as follows:

• 1. The government’s refusal to recognize that the nurses are now represented by a trade union that is different from and separate from the general public service union. This is interesting given the fact that health care at public hospitals is now run by a public corporation.
• 2. The conditions in the hospitals continue to be poor.  Nurses are made to use the same bathrooms as patients and there are no separate gender facilities on some wards so that both men and women nurses have to use the same bathrooms.
• 3.  In Freeport at the Rand Hospital, the nurses’ station where administrative work for the ward has to be conducted is in the toilet of the facility shared by the patients near the Intensive Care Unit in Freeport.  This means that the ward station cannot be used if patients are using the bathroom.
• 4. The Nurses call for equal treatment within the same facilities.  While doctors have been afforded the communication from the Government of what their increases in salary are to be, nurses have been told that their union must listen to the budget debate.  That’s seems to us a mark of professional disrespect.
• 5. As part of the equal pay for equal treatment request, nurses say that doctors are given meals at the cafeteria free of charge whole they have to pay fro meals.
• 6. Nurses say that while police officers get a 200-dollar uniform allowance and the supply of uniforms as a part of their job, nurses get 50 dollars and no help with uniforms.
• 7. Intimidation is also a factor.  Since the recent events at the hospital, the Nurses Union is alarmed at the fact that 17 nurses who were enrolled in the Community Nursing training programme at the School of Nursing have been pulled from the course and made to work to fill in the loss as a result of the last two days. At the PMH. The nurses were reportedly told that if they refused to work they would be withdrawn permanently from the course at the School of nursing.  This is a matter that must be investigated by the Ministry.