Nurses send Health Minister pre-action protocol letter

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has been served with a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter as mul­ti­ple nurses as­so­ci­a­tions in the coun­try are seek­ing to over­turn what they con­sid­er an “un­eth­i­cal” ap­point­ment to the Nurs­ing Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, the Psy­chi­atric Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Mid­wives is­sued the let­ter to the Min­is­ter through their at­tor­ney Mar­tin George.

Their con­tention; the Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to name David Alexan­der Mur­phy as one of his six ap­pointees to the Nurs­ing Coun­cil.

The Min­istry ap­point­ed Mur­phy as a mem­ber of the coun­cil on Oc­to­ber 7, via a let­ter to stake­hold­ers on Oc­to­ber 8.

In a press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, pres­i­dent of the Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion Idi Stew­art ques­tioned the reap­point­ment con­sid­er­ing his con­tentious tenure as Pres­i­dent of the Coun­cil from April 2016 to 2019, which has since es­ca­lat­ed in­to a le­gal mat­ter which is still pend­ing.

“This same in­di­vid­ual took the NCTT to court, for hold­ing meet­ings and tak­ing de­ci­sions as a coun­cil, af­ter their term had ex­pired in April 2019, “ said Stew­art, “ this ju­di­cial re­view has com­menced and leave has been grant­ed by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, to re­view the de­ci­sion tak­en by the past coun­cil.”

Stew­art said dur­ing those three years, no elec­tion was held as re­quired for the coun­cil mem­ber­ship.

“The Min­is­ter’s ap­point­ment is rid­dled with in­ter­nal con­flicts of in­ter­est,” said Stew­art.

Mar­cia Rol­lock, Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mid­wives As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so ques­tioned if the ap­point­ment could com­pro­mise af­fect the case cur­rent­ly be­fore the court.

“He has tak­en them to court and now he has been re-elect­ed to the very coun­cil that he has tak­en to court. I’m not a lawyer but it’s just not dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand that be­cause he is some­one who has tak­en them to court, how could he now be a cur­rent mem­ber of that same coun­cil?” said Rol­lock.

The as­so­ci­a­tions gave the Min­is­ter of Health a week to re­spond to the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said he had no com­ment to make on the mat­ter.