By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
THE demands for unpaid salary increases to a group of nurses did not fall on deaf ears as officials have confirmed that payments will go out today.
Speaking to The Tribune yesterday, Bahamas Nurses Union (BNU) president and South Beach MP Cleola Hamilton said the government had reassured officials that the nurses would be paid what they were owed.
She was criticised on Wednesday for not rallying with the nurses in demanding government attention. However, Ms Hamilton insisted that the nurses “did not demand anything or threaten to take any industrial action.”
“Our problem,” she said, “is that the system is too slow. The nurses in the Public Hospital’s Authority and everywhere else were paid since last year. It was just a small group of them who weren’t paid in Public Health Department at all.
“But nobody was making a demand and neither was a strike eminent. People just have a way of twisting and misconstruing what was really said.
“But (State Finance) Minister Michael Halkitis has already said that they will be paid (today).”
Unsuccessful attempts were made to contact Mr Halkitis.
This week scores of nurses bombarded the Ministry of Health demanding answers on why they had yet to receive their payments.
According to executives of the BNU an agreement between the government and the union should have resulted in salary increases beginning with a $1,000 lump sum payment in December, but that did not happen.
The union had on Wednesday sent an ultimatum to the government giving them 48 hours to authorise the payments.
They were later assured by Health Minister Dr Perry Gomez that the matter had gone before the Cabinet Office.
However, FNM officials were not satisfied with the situation or that it had got to such a point. They said the Christie administration had failed to keep its promises to Bahamian workers. Leader, Dr Hubert Minnis said “this kind of non-performance by the government” was just what the FNM expected.
While BNU officials did not say for the record that they were engaged in industrial action, The Tribune received several calls from irate persons who said there were long waits at the hospital and at clinics as many nurses did not show up for work.
It is understood that around 80 per cent of the nurses did not attend to their duties.
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