Scores of “angry, tired and frustrated” nurses are reporting sick nationwide to demand better treatment amid a surge in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases as daily figures top 500.
The sickout follows a comment by Prime Minister Andrew Holness at a recent press conference that there would not be a priority list in terms of treatment for persons who test positive for the virus and require hospitalisation.
But healthcare workers want to be singled out for priority treatment, should they contract the virus and become gravely ill.
“We are upset about the PM’s remarks about not getting any preferential treatment. We need salary increase, transportation, concession for motor vehicles [and] affordable housing,” one nurse who, too, has called in sick told Sleek News this morning.
The nurse said colleagues are taking home as little as $2000 after statutory deductions, loans and bills.
“They can’t even buy groceries,” the nurse, who requested anonymity, said.
“Some nurses are sad because after they’ve seen their payslips they’re back in a state of depression thinking what is to come. How will my children eat? How will I go to work? I’m the breadwinner. How do I make this work?” the nurse added.
Sleek News was also told that nurses spend as much as $4000 on transportation “because staff bus will only drop them off at central locations. So they’re forced to charter taxis to get home”.
Several nurses who reported to work yesterday are reportedly still on duty awaiting relief that might not come today with the sickout.
At the press conference last Thursday, Holness insisted that a priority list would be “problematic”.
“In these matters, once it comes to care, then only the standard medical triage would apply but there wouldn’t be any predetermined priority list. That would be problematic,” he said when asked if there would be a “list of priority persons for treatment and for ventilators”.
“The medical professional would have to look at it case by case and triage but it couldn’t be that there is a predetermined priority list. So I suspect that you could say that the CMO (chief medical officer) would be satisfied with that answer. We would give a predetermined priority list for persons to get access to oxygen and so forth, no,” the prime minister said at the time.
The comment was troubling to healthcare workers, and nurses in particular, as the Ministry of Health and Wellness last week confirmed the presence of the highly contagious Delta variant, locally.
Added to that, Jamaica recorded 3,343 new COVID-19 cases in the last five days and 75 deaths.
“There is this huge outbreak, and we’re putting our bodies and lives on the line, exposing our family members, sacrificing everything to keep the system afloat to be told, ‘If you get sick you wait like everyone else’. That is ridiculous. It is frustrating. It is madness,” another nurse, who did not wish to come on record, said.
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