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Faced with what they call a “ter­ri­fy­ing” si­lence from the Gov­ern­ment and a pub­lic health sys­tem on the verge of col­lapse, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) has di­rect­ed its mem­ber­ship to down tools the mo­ment their eight-hour shifts end un­less they are paid full over­time. The in­dus­tri­al di­rec­tive fol­lows ex­plo­sive al­le­ga­tions of a “rack­et” lev­elled against nurs­ing staff by North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) Chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh.

“It has left a very un­com­fort­able, un­safe en­vi­ron­ment for all pa­tients with­in the NCRHA,” stat­ed TTNNA Pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the as­so­ci­a­tion’s St Au­gus­tine of­fice yes­ter­day.

The brief­ing was called to ad­dress Gopeesingh’s sug­ges­tion that nurs­es were en­gag­ing in “cor­rup­tion” with­in the “pool” sys­tem—an ex­tra-du­ty arrange­ment de­signed to plug staffing gaps.