Nurses protest outside Parliament

Dozens of nurses gathered in Rawson Square yesterday demanding to speak with Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis about more than $300,000 reportedly owed for the time they worked during Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The prime minister did not stop to speak with the nurses after arriving at the House of Assembly yesterday morning nor did he respond to the media’s questions about the demonstration.

He waved at the demonstrators while entering the building.

“We want them to pay the nurses,” Bahamas Nurses Union (BNU) President Amancha Williams said.

She continued, “It’s now more than $300,000. That’s a slap.”

Williams said the union met with Minister of Health Renward Wells on Tuesday to drop off a list of nurses who were not paid for time worked during Dorian, a deadly Category 5 hurricane that ravaged Abaco and Grand Bahama in September 2019.

“We came to his office to drop off what he asked us for, a list for Dorian that they said they paid 85 percent and they only had five persons outstanding,” she said.

“When we created the list, we had almost 100 people outstanding and still waiting to be paid after a year [and] this is going to make two years. Did he tell you when he was going to pay the nurses? Did he tell you what he was going to pay the nurses?”

Wells did not speak to the nurses outside the House yesterday.

When asked why, he replied, “I’ve spoken to the nurses on two occasions.”

He said he met with the leadership of the union on Monday and Tuesday.

“The government has a commitment and the government is going to meet its commitments,” Wells said.

He did not respond when asked for a timeline.

Yesterday’s demonstration was the second one held by the BNU this week.

On Monday, nurses demonstrated outside the Ministry of Health. During that demonstration, they called for a meeting with the minister and demanded that an honorarium, which was promised by the government at the start of the pandemic, be paid.

In a statement, which was released on April 14, 2020, the Ministry of Health noted that despite the expected economic fallout from mandatory lockdowns, the government had committed to providing physicians with a $5,000 honorarium for those who work on the front line of the health sector’s response.

Wells said the honorarium would apply to all frontline healthcare workers.

The statement last year also noted that the government had offered the provision of a life insurance benefit of $100,000, should a healthcare worker contract COVID-19 and die as a result.

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/nurses-protest-outside-parliament/