BOTH the ministries of finance and health are blaming each other for a major cock-up that has led to an unaffordable $3-billion reclassification agreement with registered nurses that has set the Government on a collision course with doctors.

Highly placed Observer sources said the June 2007 reclassification, in some cases, put junior nurses on par with junior doctors and is being frowned on by the doctors.

On Sunday, doctors and other health professionals met in an emergency session in Kingston to discuss a plan of action to force the Government to hasten the reclassification for the entire medical sector, insisting that it was not only the nurses who needed attention.

But Finance Minister Audley Shaw has made it plain the Government is not in a position to pay the $3 billion the nurses’ reclassification would cost, said the sources who were close to the negotiations.

Instead, the Government is offering them a 15 per cent increase on current salaries which they have rejected.

Shaw and Prime Minister Bruce Golding had said earlier that nurses would have been spared a public sector wage freeze, because they had not received an increase last year.

“Apparently, at the time they spoke they were unaware of the $3-billion price tag,” the Observer source said. “Since then, there has been backing and forthing between the two ministries.”

At the centre of the spat are Senator Dwight Nelson, who was responsible for the negotiations while he wore the hat as minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service and Rudyard Spencer, the health minister.

Asked about his role in the matter, Nelson spoke in guarded tones but seemed to point the finger at the Ministry of Health. “The technical input comes from the Ministry of Health. The financial aspect of the matter is determined by the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Health had reservations about the technical aspects of the reclassification and even if the Ministry of Finance agrees with it, if the Ministry of Health does not agree, then the matter cannot be settled,” said Nelson.

“In this instance, the Ministry of Health had some reservations. I just want to put it that way and that’s all I’m prepared to say on the matter,” said the veteran trade unionist who is now the minister of national security.

But Spencer, a former Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) colleague of Nelson, dismissed the senator’s argument and threw back the blame at the finance ministry.

“Once the Ministry of Finance agrees with the request, they would send a letter to the Ministry of Health to advise us on the decision. We have received no such letter (in respect of the nurses). The argument about the permanent secretary is not true. The Ministry of Health is not holding it up. The fact of the matter is that the Ministry of Finance has not entered into an agreement with the nurses,” said Spencer.

“You need to find out from the Ministry of Finance whether they entered into an agreement and who is holding it up,” the health minister told the Observer.

Spencer’s reference to the permanent secretary was also aimed at Nelson who had been quoted by Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) president, Edith Allwood-Anderson, as saying the hold up in the implementation of the reclassification pact was being caused by Grace Allen-Young, the health ministry’s permanent secretary (PS).

Contacted by the Observer, Allwood-Anderson said: “We were to have got a letter from the ministry (finance and the public service) so we called Minister Nelson and… he told the nurses that he was getting some blockages from the ministry (health) and then he said the permanent secretary to be exact.

“So we then went to the ministry and that was when you heard some of the nurses insisting that the PS is a pharmacist and does not block or interfere with nurses, because we figured that because she’s a pharmacist maybe that’s why she’s blocking it. But in the role of being a PS, she’s the permanent secretary for all (members of the medical profession) even though she’s a pharmacist,” she said.

A civil servant in the health ministry who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the ministry’s behalf, said Allwood-Anderson was supposed to be governed by the code of conduct of a public officer and “her crass and vitriolic attack on the permanent secretary who is her civil service boss, demonstrates conduct that is unbecoming of a public officer”.

“Did Minister Nelson tell Mrs Allwood-Anderson that the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health was blocking the implementation of the agreement? If so, why would a minister of Government expose a permanent secretary to such public ridicule, hostility and abuse? Did the minister speak with his colleague, the minister of health, about his concern regarding the permanent secretary?

“Assuming that Mrs Allwood-Anderson is correct in fingering Minister Nelson as the source of the accusation against the permanent secretary, is Minister Nelson aware of the potential danger to which he has exposed the permanent secretary? Should the permanent secretary have good reasons to believe that her personal security is at risk, to whom should she turn bearing in mind that the offending minister is now the Minister of National Security? I believe that the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health is owed a public apology from all those who have placed her in such an invidious position,” the civil servant said.

And, there were no clear signs yesterday that the dispute was anywhere near to being settled, as nurses for a third day staged peaceful but noisy demonstrations, this time in front of the RJR Communications Group’s Lyndhurst Road offices in Kingston.

General Secretary of the NAJ, Zetta Bruff, told the Observer that the nurses were close to the end of their tether.

“The nurses have decided to send a strong message. We are frustrated. We are tired of the promises and counter promises from minister and the government as a whole,” said Bruff.

The militant nurses sang protest songs to the melody of popular gospel choruses and waved placards calling on the Government to address their plight. Prime Minister Bruce Golding came in for some flak from them. “Bruce don’t want we eat no bread,” one of the protesters shouted.

The nurses had just come from an emergency meeting which was held to discuss their latest strategy to deal with the burning reclassification issue.

“We are prepared for the long haul in order to get our message across,” Bruff told the Observer.