BNA backs hazard pay for all public nurses

All nurses in the public service ought to receive hazard pay because they are at risk in the COVID-19 environment, the head of the Barbados Nurses Association (BNA) Joannah Waterman has declared.

Nurses at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) are to be paid a hazard allowance for their frontline role in the care and treatment of COVID-19 patients. But the move has triggered claims for pay from nurses across the public health system, which lead to a work stoppage last Friday.

Waterman explained that hazard pay is being expedited for nurses at QEH and the Isolation facilities because they are at higher risks in managing known COVID-19 patients.

But the BNA head told Barbados TODAY that public health nurses in the community assisting with the contact tracing efforts must not be forgotten.

“Don’t forget that they are very much involved in this process constantly from the beginning. So they are also at high risk too, so really the situation is one in which management is the key driver at QEH of getting hazard allowance for their staff,” she said.

“Remember, QEH is governed by a board but the divide comes because all the other institutions are governed by the public service and by the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

“So, therefore, now we would have to have the Ministry of Health and Wellness make a determination and a decision for allotting the hazard allowance for nurses across the board. But I say, a really high priority among this grouping are the public health nurses who are doing contact tracing.”

Last week, Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Wayne Walrond said the union intended to ask Government to pay all health care workers a hazard allowance.

Walrond made the call after nurses at several polyclinics as well as the Geriatric Hospital and psychiatric hospital walked off the job, demanding that they also benefit from hazard pay just as their colleagues at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) have.

Waterman indicated that the issue goes beyond nurses lobbying for hazard allowance.

She said in addition to asking for benefits for working night shifts and bank holidays, nurses are also fighting for pay that meets their qualifications, particularly now that people are coming into the profession with bachelor’s degrees.

Waterman told Barbados TODAY: “This is a deeper, wider issue, and not just COVID-19. We have situations where the environment that you are working in, occupational hazardous situations such as the psychiatric nurses who manage aggressive and violent patients in their setting and some of them have been injured over the years.

“We have community mental health nurses who go out to people’s homes, do an excellent job but they have had situations where patients have threatened them. We have a situation where one of the mental health nurses has had to run for his life with a weapon behind him.”

The BNA president said upon the request of Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the BNA has prepared a document on the state of nursing, in which issues such as hazard pay and other deficiencies have been highlighted.

“There is a list of deficiencies, including sporadic salary payments which we are supposed to have corrected since the Prime Minister handed a directive to the Permanent Secretary that that be stopped.” Waterman said. “Nurses were not being paid for three and six months, especially at the psychiatric and geriatric hospitals.”

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)