NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
President of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, Edith Allwood Anderson.
Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
THE NURSES Association of Jamaica (NAJ) has given the Government seven working days, beginning on January 9 (until January 18) to respond to charges that it has betrayed them in its reclassification exercise and the decision to transfer nurses from the Services Commission to the Regional Health Authorities.
"The reclassification exercise [is] being taken by the Ministry of Finance behind the back of the NAJ, thus breaching the MoU, thus breaching the reclassification exercise of 1999 and breaching the collective bargaining process," said the association's president, Edith Allwood Anderson.
She was speaking at the NAJ's Second Council and Extraordinary General Meeting yesterday at its headquarters on Trevennion Park Road in Cross Roads.
A visibly militant Mrs. Allwood Anderson charged that the Ministries of Finance and Health had "disrespected the nurses of Jamaica. As a matter of fact, they want to divide and rule the nurses."
Concerning the reclassification exercise, the NAJ said that while it was pleased that "the Ministry [of Health] has seen it fit to remunerate the level six group and to house them," the Government needs to also reclassify the other levels. "All other levels beginning with level one where the registered nurse who is the lowest paid, should be reclassified."
As it relates to the second issue, the NAJ questioned why the Government had not given them a written assurance that their benefits (motor vehicle allowance, vacation leave, pension) would be carried over when they are transferred to the Regional Health Authorities.
While she insisted that the nurses were "unrepentant," Mrs. All-wood Anderson underscored that the association's members were "controlled, reflective, decisive."
Irrespective of the decision made by the Government, "the nurses would meet in 24 hours after the deadline to decide on the next course of action," the meeting concluded.
