Cabinet approves stipend for 46 graduate nurses

Cabinet has approved a proposal by this country’s Minister of Health to pay the 46 nurses who recently graduated from Cuba a stipend of $500 for November and December.{{more}}

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves told Parliament on Thursday that Minister of Health Clayton Burgin proposed that the nurses, who are assisting in various health facilities across the country, be paid a stipend.

“Arrangements are being made for many of them to be employed in St Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados, Trinidad, too…” Gonsalves said.

“But while the arrangements are being put in place, rather than staying at home, these selfless nurses have been going to the various medical facilities, including the hospital and the Honourable Minister of Health recommended to the Minister of Finance that we pay them for the months November and December a stipend of $500,” Gonsalves said.

These nurses are among the first of two batches who went to Cuba to study, starting in 2006.

Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Luis De Shong told SEARCHLIGHT yesterday that these nurses returned in early August this year and have begun their internships at various clinics and the hospital in September this year.

De Shong also said that things are being put in place to hire some of the nurses here, while others who may wish to do so, may take up assignments in other countries across the region, where a shortage of nursing staff has been a problem. (DD)