Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong has reassured all staff of the ministry that they will not lose their leave after the Fiji Nursing Association raised concerns that nurses have been recalled on their time off and days off and some of them have never been able to take the owed time because of the shortage.
Dr Fong says the Association was referring to a memo that he had written saying that all leave was suspended.
The Permanent Secretary says when he wrote that memo, the idea was to suspend all leave, bring everybody in and allow the senior managers to deal with a bigger pool and organize leave later.
The Fiji Nursing Association says the nurses are not allowed to be paid overtime but are expected to work whenever they are recalled, and this is playing on nurses’ emotions and dedication to their patients to get them to work.
President Dr Alisi Vudiniabola says the nurses have been resigning for overwork and better working conditions elsewhere either locally or abroad.
Vudiniabola says they have the most number of nurses resigning now in a given year and some of those that have resigned just prefer to stay home because they are tired and overworked without remuneration.
She says the resignations is the depletion in the levels of clinical skills and proficiencies of the nurses that are leaving against the ones that are left behind.
Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete has objected to allegations that the reason that many nurses are resigning is because of work stress calling it false and unfounded.
Dr Waqainabete says a quick review of the resignation data shows that from 2018 to 2021, the total number of nurses who exited the ministry were 437, and 284 were resignations adding the main reasons for resignation was migration and pursuing job opportunities abroad.
He says these are the reasons that are highlighted in the resignation letter.
The Minister also highlighted that they have exit interviews where the nurses who have resigned can raise issues with them.
He says in the same period, the Ministry recruited 678 nurses.
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