The simmering tension between the Nurses’ Association of Jamaica and the Ministry of Labour has brought into sharp relief the difficulties attending labour negotiations in Jamaica. The present imbroglio between the nurses and the government certainly does not bode well for the state of health of the Jamaican people. From a public relations standpoint, it does not speak well to how succeeding governments have handled matters of this sort.

In the indefatigable Mrs Edith Allwood-Anderson the nurses have a fighter who government personnel have discovered is not a pushover. Her tenacity and persistence are not recently developed traits. Those who know her well know that this is who she is. I remember her well when in an earlier time we worked together on our house and school-debating teams. From that time she demonstrated admirable debating skills and one can see that she has not lost much of the vigour and persistence that she possessed then.

It is no surprise that the nurses keep electing her as their national president. In her the nurses know that they have a dependable fighter who will reliably and fearlessly represent their views and defend their best interests. She has certain idiosyncrasies that may rub some people the wrong way (as Minister Charles and Minister Shaw have discovered), but these do not detract from her quintessential defence of the rights of the nurses in clamouring for better wages.

When it comes to just wages, there can be no doubt that the nurses have been shabbily treated by succeeding governments of Jamaica. They are among the poorest paid workers in the health services in particular, and the civil service in general. And this observation pertains to all categories of nurses, including dental nurses who can hardly be seen on the radar screen as performing a necessary function in cauterising dental disease. They and public health inspectors are treated as the Cinderella of the civil service. They deserve better treatment.

Salary upgrades promised to the nurses have been missed repeatedly. Why has this been the case? My feeling is that succeeding governments believe they can get away with it. The nurses will make some noise or go into a period of fasting and prayer; they may threaten to go on sickout or otherwise withdraw their services, but at the end of the day they will have to return to work. They return either because of the compulsion of conscience or by virtue of the big stick being applied to them as workers in an essential service.

And let us have no illusions concerning the conditions under which our nurses and junior doctors have to work. Our hospitals are not the most hospitable environments to work in. The nurses are often disrespected by the very patients they serve. Some of these patients seem to believe that the nurses are there to fulfil a service, to respond to their beck and call, and to be spoken to however they wish. Like the junior doctors in the system, they often work long hours beyond the call of duty, sometimes without pay. But they soldier on out of a sense of duty and out of a strong philosophy of service by which they recognise that their essential task is to fight disease and attend to the health and welfare of their patients.

This sense of patriotism and devotion to duty must not be taken for granted. I have argued for public sector wage restraint especially in the context of our ongoing financial crisis. We are not out of the woods yet and it would be a delusion to think that now that the JDX has been successfully concluded or that money is flowing in from the IMF and other agencies, we now have a magical elixir for economic prosperity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Notwithstanding this, I believe that the nurses deserve the break they were long promised. Not only do they deserve it, but the government is morally bound to provide it. They have waited long enough and it is time that the ministries of finance, health and labour come together, bury the pettiness that seems to be emerging in their treatment of the nurses and do the decent thing by them.

stead6655@aol.com

www.drraulston.com