Frustrated A&E nurses demand changes at UHWI

Nurses from the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Unit at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) staged a protest at the entrance to the facility yesterday, holding cardboard placards and chanting their demands.

With signs in hand, the message was not about money this time, but rather a call for better working conditions. An A&E nurse told THE STAR that nurses are grappling with numerous challenges.

“There are a lot of stressors that we have to work with, whether it’s lack of resources, lack of staff, and the administration is not privy to these struggles because they are not working on the floor like the immediate staff,” the nurse explained. The nurse stressed that for those looking on who may view the action as just another protest by nurses, “no one understands what nurses go through”.

According to the nurse, concerns have repeatedly been raised with the administrative board and the Ministry of Health and Wellness, but those complaints have largely gone unanswered.

“I’m sure they are trying at their own level, but I am not seeing any changes, so it’s just complaining and I don’t know if it is no longer beneficial. So most people won’t speak up even though we should, but I am not seeing any difference,” the nurse said.

On Tuesday, nurses displayed placards with messages including ‘We are tired’, ‘Overworked’, and ‘We need resources’. 

“I can’t blame the other nurses because I think the entire department should be striking, but what I don’t want it to do is compromise patient care because that should be our top priority,” the nurse said, adding that the working conditions are also affecting patients. The nurse said there is an issue with staffing. 

“It’s like a million patients and two or three nurses assigned to an area. I don’t think that’s adequate … and it’s unreasonable to ask three nurses to be catering to more than 15 patients. One nurse can’t juggle so many things, nurses are humans,” the nurse said.

Colonel Dr Sydney Powell, acting CEO of the UHWI, told The Gleaner that the A&E department has more admissions than usual. 

“It is creating a backlog of patients in the emergency room who we need to move to areas in the wards. So that's what we're doing now, to move those patients out of A&E to the wards, where we would have identified spaces for those patients who have been admitted,” he said.

He added that up to 50 patients had been transferred overnight as the administration worked to address the issue.