Dis­rup­tions were re­port­ed at sev­er­al pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties on the first day of “to­tal nurs­ing” in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, in­clud­ing at the Barataria Health Cen­tre and the tem­po­rary scal­ing down of ser­vices at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment of the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex yes­ter­day, T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art said the de­vel­op­ments at the Women’s Hos­pi­tal were un­for­tu­nate.

“We re­al­ly re­gret that tran­spir­ing, but it again high­lights how short-staffed some of our wards are. We em­pathise with the pop­u­la­tion who had to move be­tween a num­ber of in­sti­tu­tions through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go, but in the end there will be a suc­cess­ful out­come, not on­ly for staff but for pa­tients them­selves,” he said.