THE MINISTRY of Health, through the Southern Regional Health Authority, has met its deadline to pay nurses at the Mandeville Regional Hospital and other areas in the southern region their long promised adjusted travel and supper allowance rates.
This was confirmed by officials of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) on Tuesday.
Nurses at the Mandeville Regional Hospital, Manchester, in particular had been upset at the long delay in the payments and had staged a protest at the institution between Tuesday and Thursday last week.
They went back to work on Friday at the urging of their unions, the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) and the Jamaica Enrolled Nurses Association (JENA), as well as a promise from the Health Ministry that they would receive outstanding payments for supper and travel allowances by Tuesday.
The nurses should have received the adjusted allowances since April 2002. Adjusted rates amounted to $258 per occasion from April 2002, but nurses were still receiving the old rates.
The supper and travel allowances are paid to nurses who work the 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. shift and the 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. shift.
In a statement last Friday, NAJ president Iris Wilson expressed hope that the Ministry of Health and the health authority would honour its commitment to pay the nurses yesterday and added that it regretted any inconvenience caused to the public.
Reports out of the hospital had indicated that several services were disrupted and that elective surgeries were postponed as a result of the protest.
