Minister of Health and Wellness, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville addressed the status of nurse this week.

There are some nurse who have yet to be made permanent. The minister told reporters, “I would be disingenuous to say that the regularizing process is moving at the speed we expect. But the Ministry of Health and Wellness is not the agency, it’s under the public service. And so it has to go through the public service and it has to go through the Public Service Commission. Sometimes that can be frustrating for our staff, but while we’re saying this any Bahamian who is a registered nurse from a qualified institution should apply to the ministry.”

President of the Bahamas Nurses Union, Muriel Lightbourn has voiced concern about the importing of nurses when Bahamians are available to fill the roles. Dr. Darville said, “we are contently meeting together. We meet with the nurses union, they have concerns. We try to address those concerns in a timely fashion but the reality is things take time. I think one of the things that we need to do more is probably meet more but every time we meet we outline exactly where we at and what’s going on and we try to do our endeavor best to resolve these things in short order.”