The Trinidad and Tobago National Nursing Association has entered the second phase of an industrial action campaign, and the response from at least one regional health authority has triggered new safety concerns.
TTNNA president Idi Stuart said the North Central Regional Health Authority has been requiring nurses and midwifery staff to work alone on hospital wards. Stuart described the practice as the NCRHA’s reaction to the April 28 phase-two roll-out, in which nurses were advised to perform only the duties strictly within their scope.
Care at San Fernando General Hospital appears to have remained largely stable, according to relatives of patients who spoke with the Trinidad Guardian. Separately, the psychiatric ward at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex has been relocated to the Arima Hospital as health authorities move to free bed capacity.
For the Caribbean diaspora, the underlying story is familiar. Caribbean-trained nurses are one of the region’s most heavily exported labour categories — to the UK National Health Service, to U.S. hospital systems, to Canadian long-term-care facilities. The conditions producing today’s industrial action in Trinidad are also the conditions producing tomorrow’s emigration: understaffed wards, contested working hours, and a slow erosion of safety margins.
A diaspora nurse in Brooklyn or Birmingham reading this story knows exactly what “working alone on the ward” means.
Sources: Trinidad Express; Trinidad Guardian (April 30, 2026).