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Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art has de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to raise alarm pub­licly about what he de­scribes as a wor­ry­ing nurs­ing short­age at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) in Mt Hope, in­sist­ing the sit­u­a­tion has reached cri­sis lev­els and is af­fect­ing pa­tient care.

In a state­ment post­ed to the as­so­ci­a­tion's Face­book page on Sat­ur­day, Stu­art said giv­en the sit­u­a­tion, the pub­lic is ad­vised to seek treat­ment for them­selves or rel­a­tives else­where.

"Mul­ti­ple wards have none or on­ly one nurse on du­ty. No con­tin­gency plan in place. No alert lev­el post­ed to in­form pub­lic of the emer­gency sit­u­a­tion. Un­safe ra­tios through­out en­tire hos­pi­tal. Most wards - 17 to 20 pa­tients to 1 RN. Oth­er wards - No staff.