NURSES ON the weekend opted to wait until after Wednesday's General Election to resume discussions with health officials about burning issues such as whether to end staff secondment and guarantee appointments and job security for scores of nurses.
Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) president, Iris Wilson, said yesterday that the wait was being made following a request for more time from Ministry of Health officials who reportedly wanted to wait until after the October 16 elections to make major decisions.
"There will not be any action by the nurses or so forth. We are giving the Ministry enough time to sort out a new Government. They want us to give them some time. It doesn't make sense for them to promise anything now until there is a new Government come Wednesday," Mrs. Wilson said, following Friday's opening of the NAJ's islandwide conference and meeting with health officials at the Renaissance Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.
Health officials, among them Health Ministry's Permanent Secretary, Grace Allen-Young, were expected to field questions from nurses.
There is also no firm decision on whether nurses should join the personnel of the four regional health authorities or opt to remain on secondment.
It was discussed during Saturday's meeting of the NAJ's council but no decision was taken. "They never decided one way or the other. I think that persons want to wait and see what happens after elections. We have another council meeting in January and then this period of secondment officially ends the 31st March so I suppose as the time approaches, they will seem more compelled to decide. We will have to make a decision by then," explained Mrs Wilson, who was re-elected NAJ president for her third and final term at the NAJ's annual general meeting, held Thursday.
In November 2000, the majority of the island's nurses, midwives and junior doctors opted to remain on secondment to the Ministry of Health and the Public Services Commission, instead of accepting permanent appointments at various Regional Health Authorities (RHAs).
One reason for the decision which was given then, was that the Regional Health Authorities had not yet established a pension scheme or formal terms of employment for those persons they intend to employ permanently.
Health officials had stated, in 2000, that extended secondment will give the 28 medically related bargaining units time to think about the issue carefully, as well as allot time to properly conduct the transfer of functions from the Office of the Services Commission to the Regional Health Authorities. Other choices offered to the associations included permanent appointment or resignation.
Speaking with The Gleaner last Wednesday, Mrs. Wilson said that several nurses islandwide are still without appointments, despite acting in positions for years.
"We still have a lot of nurses who are not appointed. It is a countrywide thing. Even when we went on secondment, some nurses were still working for years without being appointed in the positions they were acting in. There are persons who have been working since 1998 without being appointed," she said.
Following a similar meeting in early 2001, Mrs. Wilson said that ministry officials had told her that nurses should receive appointment letters and their first payment of adjusted salaries by the end of June, 2001. The nurses should have also received retroactive payment by September last year.
"This was done. We got our last salary adjustment in April of this year. We are due to start bargaining early next year, because this contract that we have ends in March 2003."
But, Mrs. Wilson added that nurses who were still acting in positions without appointments have been missing out on their annual increments "because increments start after appointment."
She said that the NAJ has been told that the appointment of some nurses was taking long because decentralisation had left the Services Commission with fewer personnel to do the necessary work.
