BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER Hon. Shawn Richards yesterday (Nov. 29) cleared the air on the recruitment of nurses from the Philippines, with special emphasis on their skills and remuneration package offered by the Team Unity Administration.
The DPM’s detailed explanation came on the backdrop of a leaked Ministry of Health’s correspondence that stated 17 nurses from the Philippines would be recruited to work at the Joseph N France General Hospital.
This information had been circulating via social media and discussions held on talk shows in the Federation as well as press releases from the main Opposition, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP).
In an SKNLP’s release, Dr. Terrance Drew is quoted as saying that nurses in St. Kitts and Nevis “do not deserve the disrespect being dished out” by Health Minister Hon. Eugene Hamilton and Junior Minister of Health Senator the Hon. Wendy Phipps.
It stated that Dr. Drew had drawn attention to the lucrative contracts given to foreign nurses by the Government and that he applauded “the priceless value of local healthcare workers” while reaffirming his support for locdal nurses who are well-trained and hard working.
“However, I do not negate the fact that there are a few 'bad apples ' as in any organisation. Thus, let us not judge the profession by the few bad actors. The nurses here work under very difficult conditions,” he was quoted as saying, while adding that the local Florence Nightingales “can be compared to nurses in Jamaica, the United States and Cuba, where he had direct contact with nurses”.
The release further stated that Dr. Drew made reference to the leaked document in which he claimed the Government had offered 17 nurses from the Philippines “very lucrative contracts with housing allowances of $500 per month, health insurance and a gratuity of 10 percent”.
Yesterday on WINN FM’s ‘Voices’ programme, a number of individuals had called in to share their views on the issue.
One caller said: “You are telling me that a number of young persons would have left the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College and you are telling me we don’t have no bright people? They are untrainable that they have to send for people in the Philippine and elsewhere to become nurses? No, something is wrong! Something is dead wrong! The nurses are leaving because they are underpaid, they are dissatisfied, they are disrespected and the truth must come out. How you think a nurse wants to leave to go to Anguilla or to some other island or country and leaving she family? I believe that all the nurses are asking for is to treat me right. You are going to bring people from the Philippines that going to be making something like $2,000 more than nurses presently being paid. How are they going to feel? They are only human! They are human. I am asking my Government to investigate what is going on at JNF, because something is going on and correct it.”
In response to the numerous statements and opinions made by the callers as well as what were being circulated on social media, Minister Richards called in to the programme and confuted the allegations.
“First of all, let me indicate that the nurses which are being hired are to provide a particular specialist skill set which is currently lacking among the local nursing fraternity in St. Kitts and Nevis, in particular areas such as Oncology, the Haemodialysis Unit, Intensive Care Mental Health. For example, my information is that at this particular point in time we only have about three persons in the Federation who are trained in the area of Mental Health.
“We have some of them in the Operating Theatre...you have one, two three of them I think it is for the Oncology Unit, a next one for the Haemodialysis Unit and most of them between Intensive Care, Oncology and the Operating Theatre.
“When these persons are hired, they are hired primarily to ensure that our own local people can get the best in terms of quality healthcare at the hospital. As a matter of fact, when they are hired, they are hired to help to build capacity among the local nurses who we have here in St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Addressing the accusation of $2,000 difference in salary between the local and Philippines nurses, Minister Richards explained that recruited workers had to be paid a housing allowance, which is in keeping with the relevant Statutory Rules and Orders (SR&O).
“In terms of the pay scale, which begins at K33, the very same pay scale that local nurses are being paid at, it is the very same pay scale which is being used to pay persons who are recruited from overseas. The pay scale is absolutely no different.
“Now there are some who complained, for example, about the $500 contribution to housing, and again if you look at SR&O number eight of 2014, not under this administration, 2014 under the former administration is that SR&O speaks to the fact that when you bring in foreign workers you have to provide them with adequate housing. And so in order to assist the nurses who have been brought in with adequate housing, they are given an allowance of $500 per month.”
Richards also explained that recruiting foreign nurses is not a new practice in the Federation. He stated that in the past the Labour Administration had recruited nurses from a number of countries, including the United States of America, Cuba, Africa, Santo Domingo and the Philippines.
“To ensure that we have nurses who are able deliver the required needs to the patients up at the JNF, we have had sometimes to look overseas, and this isn’t something which has begun with this particular administration. Because, if persons were to go back and take a look at what has happened in the past, this is a practice which has happened in the past.
“So when persons are giving the impression that this just began under Team Unity...that certainly isn’t the case. But what we are ensuring is that as we have these specialised units up at the hospital...that we have adequate nurses in place to man the units. Because the next complaint you would receive from persons is that they have gone to the hospital and you don’t have nurses there to provide them with good healthcare. So rather than having that situation, in some cases we have had to recruit persons.”
The Minister further addressed a report of some nurses reporting sick over the last weekend because of the alleged salary difference.
“We have a person, for example, who posted that a number of nurses reported sick on the weekend. But the information which the Government had received is that some of the nurses were affected by Zika and so they have had red eye, in which apparently is one of the symptoms associated with the Zika. And so those persons of course were not able to report to work over the weekend. You had some nurses who had surgery...two of them actually who had surgery, and so those two nurses were not able to work.”
The Deputy Prime Minister Richards declared that as long as it was absolutely necessary, the Team Unity Government would continue to recruit foreign nurses until sufficient local nurses are trained in the respective specialty areas of healthcare.
Efforts were made yesterday to contact the Junior Minister of Health, Senator Wendy Phipps, for a comment on the issue, but they were futile as those similarly made on numerous occasions in the past.
