The Tribune

By SYANN THOMPSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

sthompson@tribunemedia.net

ALL remaining doctors and nurses qualifying for the $1,400 lump sum promised by the government in December 2019 have been paid, according to a Public Hospitals Authority official.

PHA Deputy Managing Director Lyrone Burrows told The Tribune that all qualifying doctors and nurses left to be paid, received their $1,400 lump sum.

“Based on the information we have, all physicians and all nurses have now received their payments. We are quite confident in indicating that the matter has been resolved completely,” said Mr Burrows.

There were 15 issues where deposits did not go through due to bank routing numbers. However, according to Mr Burrows those should also have been resolved.

“Payment of the direct deposit to the nurses and physicians that had not received their lump sum payments would have been sent to them on Friday (January 17). We were advised at that time that there was a total of 15 instances where there were rejections of the deposits due to issues with the routing numbers, the routing numbers that we would have used in submitting their December pay.

“So we then provided additional information to the bank and we’ve not heard anything to the contrary to indicate that they were not successful. Generally, depending on which institution, because we use RBC as our main institution for routing, and depending on who is the actual bank for individuals affected it’s generally 24 up to 48 hours for it to be transferred into those institutions. So we assumed within 48 hours all payments would have been made. We have not received any information to the contrary that there would have been an error message,” said Mr Burrows.

Last December there was an issue as to whether all junior doctors would be paid the lump sum or only those who were “pensionable and permanent”. Prime Minister Hubert Minnis confirmed that all junior doctors would be paid.

Government workers who were eligible for the lump sum included Bahamas Public Service Union members, teachers, permanent weekly paid staff, uniformed branches, Public Hospitals Authority staff, including doctors and nurses – excluding consultant doctors. Those not included in this list are other government authorities and corporations, members of the judiciary, contract workers hired outside the Public Service Commission, the 52-week programme employees, air traffic controllers, as well as Cabinet ministers and members of Parliament.