The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) has described as “humiliating, disrespectful and demoralising”, the Government’s decision to grant each registered nurse an advance of $50,000 instead of the US$2,000 that was requested. However, the nurses say they will accept the loan in the “interest of the public”.

The association announced last week that it had put in a request to the finance ministry for a non-taxable, no-interest loan of US$2,000, for each of the island’s 2,500 registered nurses to be repaid over a period of three or six months after the signing of the 2008-2010 Heads of Agreement.

NAJ President Edith Allwood-Anderson argued that the loan was necessary because the nurses’ salaries would be unable to adequately provide for them during the festive season.

But according to a release from the NAJ Wednesday, the government has only agreed to lend each nurse $50,000 taxable at 25 per cent. This amounts to $37,500 in real terms.

“The NAJ considers this offer very humiliating, disrespectful and demoralising,” Allwood-Anderson said in the release, pleading for the finance minister to waive the tax and interest to be accrued on the loan.

“We are accepting this offer in the interest of the Jamaican public and further point out that we expect that all outstanding allowances owed to nurses for September, October and November be paid in full by December 23,” she added.

The NAJ president said that as far as the nurses were concerned, normality in the health sector could not be guaranteed in January because they were dissatisfied with Government’s offer.