COURT GRANTS INJUNCTION AGAINST NURSES

LABOUR Minister Pearnel Charles yesterday secured a 14-day injunction from the Supreme Court to prevent further industrial action by registered nurses represented by the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ).
Registered nurses assigned to the island’s public hospitals have since Tuesday been calling in sick, as they step up their protest against the non-implementation a reclassification programme by the Government.
Charles, in a statement yesterday, said that any action to disrupt the health services could not be in the national interest, hence his decision to seek the injunction.
“The nurses are therefore urged to return to work with immediate effect in compliance with the order of the court,” Charles said.
“The Ministry of Labour and Social Security encourages the nurses to avail themselves of the conciliatory mechanisms by which disputes of this nature can be settled,” Charles said.
However, president of the NAJ Edith Allwood-Anderson was adamant that her group would continue their industrial actions at hospitals across the island in an effort to secure monies owed to registered nurses and a set date for the implementation of the reclassification of nurses.
Allwood-Anderson, whose association has been in discussion with the Government about the reclassification of registered nurses for sometime now, said the group was tired of verbal meetings and was planning some ‘drastic’ measures to get the administration’s attention to their plight.
“…We are tired of talking, so whatever will be done now will be non-verbal and will be very ‘actionised’,” the NAJ president said yesterday. “We sent out a documentation that we have stepped up the action, starting from the wearing of black, to our public education campaign and now our nurses have instituted another kind of public education on the ground,” she told the Observer.
Meanwhile, Allwood-Anderson said she and members of her executives were absent from Tuesday’s meeting at the labour ministry because they were not informed.
The emergency meeting was called by Minister Charles, after receiving reports that registered nurses were reporting sick yesterday at hospitals across the island.
“Pearnel never tell us about no meeting, he put it over the air when we were out of town,” said Allwood-Anderson.
The NAJ head later agreed to a meeting with Health Minister Rudyard Spencer that was scheduled for yesterday afternoon.
Matters discussed at that meeting were not ascertained, but the health minister had indicated earlier yesterday that one of the issues he wanted to discuss with Allwood- Anderson was the high level of absenteeism among nursing staff at public hospitals.

No related posts.

Category: Awareness, Caribbean News, Legal