Fiji Nursing Association president Dr Alisi Vudiniabola says there are only five registered zone nurses at the Lautoka Public Health Division looking after 80,000 people.
In addition to this, she said the Navua and CWM hospitals had lost most of its senior managers.
She said the five, whose jobs were to promote community wellness and help reduce health risks in marginalised communities, were looking after all 12 zones in Lautoka.
“There just seems to be a gross lack of transparency in the Ministry of Health’s budgetary allocations for nurses, whereby there is no tangible desire to fill in the vacant senior positions in Lautoka public health division,” she said.
“There’s only five registered zone nurses left to look after 12 zones.
“That’s slavery for the five remaining nurses and yet the Government allocates around $19 million for Lautoka Hospital, which is now run by Aspen.
“Something is very wrong somewhere and FNA is already reading in between the budget lines.
“I think we are truly convinced that there is something amiss in the allocation for nurses and it’s not looking good.”
Health Ministry permanent secretary Dr James Fong earlier announced that nurses were set to receive their salary adjustments by August 24.
Dr Vudiniabola raised the question of whether the scarce skills allowance, which appeared to be boosting the salary adjustment, was just a one-off payment.
“We also wonder why they are using the second pay in August and not the first pay because if they used the first pay, then nurses would at least know what they are actually getting from these allocations.
“They could at least have some comparative analysis to do with the first pay.”
Dr Fong said the allowance payment was not one-off and the effects of health care workers’ exodus was an ongoing challenge.
“We can only mitigate through whatever we get from our ongoing recruitment strategy.
“The pool we recruit from are graduates, and rehiring retired nurses and other nurses who have exited the system.
“We have explored overseas recruitment with little success from current processes and we are exploring how better we can access this pool.
“It will require some prior work with the Fiji Nursing Council.”
