A NUMBER of qualified nurses are hiding out in some institutions with precious little to do and being paid a tidy salary.
Those with responsibility need to go through the staff roll in some of the district hospitals, where staff nurses who should be working at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) are performing functions of a nursing assistant, while staff are crying out for help at our main hospital.
Is Minister of Health John Boyce going to say this is not his fault too? Is he going to say he did not know?
If this is the case, let him know that there is a solution to the short-staffing at the QEH. Get all these people hiding in these places into the QEH pronto.
Were this a private sector institute, this kind of nonsense would not be allowed to prevail. Why should we pay a qualified nurse a full salary to do the work of an assistant?
Check the staffing ratios to the patients and tell me how such an imbalance can occur, while a centrally localised hospital is languishing so long for additional qualified staff. As a matter of fact, check the entire staffing complement to the size of operation and tell me if it can be justified at some of these district hospitals.
I am not suggesting for one moment that some staff nurses and other category workers are not necessary, but check how many they are that are wasting time and not being productive, even though their services are desperately needed elsewhere.
This is nothing short of dereliction of duty by the total management team. Or wait, is it politics?
Taxpayers’ money seemingly requires no level of accountability, nor does it have value.  Â
– MARY YEARWOOD