The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Nurses Union president Muriel Lightbourn has won a second term, beating four challengers less than two months after a Supreme Court judge found she had unlawfully suspended two of the union’s top officers.

Mrs Lightbourn received 345 votes in the November 6 election. Maria Mackey-Smith had 214, Shanique Mackey 165, Jenelen Webster-Rolle 61 and Nickela Williams 12, according to results certified by the Registrar of Trade Unions. Mrs Lightbourn’s total was fewer than half of the 797 votes cast for president, and her four opponents took 452 between them.

The court-ordered vote ends, for now, a bitter fight for control of the union. It began in April last year when Mrs Lightbourn suspended Secretary General Shavone Brennen and First Vice-President Sheniqua Cox over alleged breaches of the union’s constitution.

Several executives then declared that Mrs Lightbourn was no longer a member of the union, alleging that she had not paid her dues. They also accused her leadership of a lack of financial transparency. The locks at the union’s headquarters were changed, and the dispute ended up in the Supreme Court.

On election day, Mrs Lightbourn confronted the dues question. Moments before casting her ballot at the Registrar of Trade Unions, she held up a handful of receipts to show she had paid. She said she was confident that she and her slate, known as the “Power Team”, would win.

Justice Camille Darville-Gomez refused the executives’ bid to remove Mrs Lightbourn and declare her a non-member. However, she ruled that the suspensions of Ms Brennen and Ms Cox were unlawful and void. She found that the pair had been suspended without investigation or trial and denied the right to be heard. She described the case as a “serious breakdown” in the union’s governance.

“The financial members of the union deserve better,” the judge wrote in her October ruling, which ordered the election to be held by November 13.

Mrs Lightbourn later called the ruling on the suspensions a technicality.

Asked what she would change in a new term, Mrs Lightbourn said members needed a different mindset about leadership.

“We need to understand that once a person is elected, regardless of whether they are trained clinical nurse or registered nurse and nursing officer, when you sit in the office of the president, that status is null and void,” she said.

She said amending the union’s constitution was essential to stop nurses from taking the union to court over avoidable matters. She also said many members were eager for the union’s industrial agreement to be completed and signed.

Nurses who spoke to The Tribune on election day described worsening conditions and scarce resources in the public healthcare system.

One nurse with 10 years’ experience, who has worked at several Family Island clinics, said the vote went smoothly but that conditions had to change. She said each clinic had its own problems, including poor infrastructure, a lack of medical equipment and unreliable utilities.

“We need a lot of improvement because you can’t efficiently take care of patients if you don’t have all of the materials to do it,” she said. “I feel like we are underpaid, overworked and underpaid.”

Some polling stations had trouble with the lists of eligible voters. Poll workers initially struggled to match voters to the registered membership by hand, and delays eased once more legible lists were provided.

The opposition was split across several slates. Ms Mackey-Smith ran for The Force, Mrs Webster-Rolle for the Nurses Empowered Alliance (NEA) and Mrs Mackey for Team Rise. A fifth group, Presidents to Elect, also contested the election.

Mrs Mackey, who has 36 years of nursing experience, said she believed the number of groups challenging the incumbent leadership may have split the opposition vote and given the existing leadership a better chance of holding on.

She said nurses felt their voices were not being heard, and she called for better wages, timely promotions, improved nurse-to-patient ratios and risk allowances. She criticised what she described as a lack of communication and vision from the union’s leadership.

Anarose Reckley, first vice-president of The Force, said nurses had been without proper representation for three years and that many were dissatisfied with the leadership. She said the union had been distracted by court proceedings for the past two years, and that members had told her team they were ready for a change.

Ms Brennen, speaking for The Force, said morale in the union was shaky.

“We do know we feel the disjointness, the segregation, and we need that to be erased,” she said. “Another thing that we want to work on is ensuring that the administration sticks to accountability and transparency.”

Mrs Webster-Rolle, who has more than 20 years of nursing experience, called for greater accountability, stronger advocacy, safe staffing, workplace safety, professional development, and equal opportunities for nurses in New Providence and the Family Islands.

Ms Williams, who has 20 years of nursing experience, said she wanted the union to own its headquarters instead of renting, as it has for more than a decade.

Among the concerns nurses raised were expired industrial agreements, inadequate benefits and poor working conditions.

Mrs Lightbourn was first elected president in January 2023, succeeding Amancha Williams. The union’s constitution provides for three-year terms, which meant an election was due early this year. Mrs Lightbourn has blamed the delay on Ms Brennen, who chaired the election committee. She has alleged that Ms Brennen failed to submit the members’ decision on the election to the Registrar.