NASSAU, BAHAMAS — “You failed us, we’re going to fail you,” said Bahamas Nurse Union (BNU) President Amancha Williams, making clear that the nurses will act a bloc to ensure the kind of representation it wishes to see in the next general election.
“We are going to say to everybody, go and register,” Williams told Eyewitness News in a recent interview.
“Register to vote.
“We are looking for people who are going to sit in a specific seat, the minister of health and the senator, as part of the labor department, (a reference to Senator Dion Foulkes, the minister of labor) that is going to represent laborers who are laboring among us.
“We are going to have our own agenda and we are assuring you that our agenda will be carried out.”
However, Williams cautioned anyone who sits as minister of labour or health that their failure will have the same outcome.
“When you fail, we will remove you because that’s what we are going to set up for,” she said.
“We have to now gear the country into the mood that we have to have the benefit of what it is to be a worker.
“We are not asking our government to go overboard, to rob the bank or dry out the Treasury.
“But we are asking to give what is due to the service that we render.
“That’s what we are asking our government.
Nurses have long demanded the government honor its commitment to pay them for extra time worked during the pandemic in addition to a promised honorarium.
The government has said despite the stalled economy, it was committed to providing physicians with a $5,000 honorarium for those who work on the frontlines of the fight against COVID.
Wells said that honorarium would apply to all health professionals on the frontlines.
The government also offered life insurance benefit of $100,000 should a healthcare worker contract COVID-19 and die as a result.
As of February, around 60 percent of nurses who were owed overtime were paid, but Williams said the honorarium has yet to be honoured.
According to the union president, at least 25 nurses left the public sector to take jobs abroad in the last six months.
Wells, who has acknowledged the shortfall of nurses in the health system, has appealed to all available nurses to step forward, saying: “We need your help and we appreciate your help.”
“There are health and safety matters. Ensure that we have a hospital that is up to the standards that will give the best healthcare service in the world, no matter what comes.
“Have succession planning is this country. We have already created ways to retain and keep our nurses in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Listen to us. When we write an industrial agreement, this is what the nurse is saying. Tell the employer, don’t come with what you want because what you want is not what the worker wants. You have to listen for what the workers want.
She said employers must lookout for the best interest of the employees, and not just themselves.
She said the government has the ability to keep nurses in The Bahamas: “better benefits and better wages, and the only people that are fighting for that is the union. That is why I am saying to everyone single person — Canada, the Canadian Labour Congress is fighting for better EI (employment insurance) right now presently, and asking the Senate to sign off on it.
“Here in The Bahamas, have you heard the senators say anything about the nurses.”
She said the union will seek to ensure the government of the day sends senators to the Upper Chamber who will look out for and speak on behalf of the workers, the nurses, the healthcare professionals, and many others.
“When we put a minister as a minister of health, he will be looking out for us.”
She added: “And you say you appreciate us,” Williams said. “Appreciate us when you change the policies that govern us.”
