#BTSpeakingOut- Nurses do not deserve this

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you at this hour.

Barbadian nurses have been going through torment and disrespect for decades while we sat like well-behaved children complaining amongst ourselves, until we really didn’t have a choice but to take industrial action.

Now it seems this disrespect is being taken to another level in 2022 as Government slaps us in the face with 200 more Ghanaian nurses expected to come to Barbados, on top of the 95 that came before.

The question I want to ask is why are they disrespecting us? Why is our plight being ignored? Why aren’t we deemed important to the development of Barbados? Why are we being treated like second class citizens in our own country? We are NOT xenophobic but these foreign nurses don’t even have to sit an exam before practising here, but we do, and if we fail our three tries our degree goes down the drain. So who are we really putting at risk? – the public of Barbados.

To add insult to injury, we are being asked to train these Ghanaian nurses up-to-date skills. This is given the fact that they are paid at maximum, are getting housing, 20 per cent of their salary on their gratuity and other benefits while we Barbadian nurses are catching our tails.

We work extended hours every day yet it isn’t guaranteed that at the end of the month we will get a salary at all or even the full amount. Sometimes we go six months without pay, borrowing from this body, that body and the third. Borrowing from people to put gas in our cars, to get lunch, to deal with our children.

When we finally get the money, the tax done got it lick up and when you done pay back the first, second and third body you ain’t got nothing to rally with for the next six months and you still got to wait for another six months to get pay again. It is becoming very toxic.

Last month several nurses left the island seeking greener pastures. This number includes some of the same Ghanaian nurses that came in 2020, who broke their contracts to go practise in England and New York after reaping the skills and complaining about the said terms and conditions in our health care institutions. I’m sure that number will double in the next quarter and I could only imagine the number that will be gone by the end of the year.

We are disappointed. We are suffering. We are frustrated.

We are fed up and cannot take it anymore.

Aggrieved BARBADIAN nurse