NATIONAL Nursing Association head Idi Stuart said Trinidad and Tobago has the worst pass rate in the entire Caribbean when it comes to CXC's Regional Examination for Nurse Registration.
Speaking following the opening of the National Nurses Credit Union Co-operative Society Limited at Warren Street in Curepe on May 13, Stuart said, “We have a high failure rate of nursing personnel – more than 50 per cent.
"That is causing a big problem. Nurses have to study and learn almost everything doctors do, except possibly how to do the surgery, in order to be able to catch any errors that are made.”
He said the main reason for this state of affairs is the withdrawal of the nursing stipend.
“The length of nursing training is four years, compared to five years for medical school. While doctors can take a loan to pay for their studies and can command a salary after graduation that allows them to pay it back, nurses don’t have that luxury and have to work while studying to earn income.
"And this is what we believe is the central issue leading to the lowest pass rates in the Caribbean, which is just about 50 per cent. In other Caribbean islands, students are given stipends and even hostel accommodation.”
He said nurses training at the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts (COSTAATT) currently get a stipend, while the nurses at the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) had their stipend withdrawn between 8-11 years ago, and the UWI's nursing school never received a stipend.
Stuart said past prime minister Stuart Young gave a commitment to bringing back this stipend and added he hopes Health Minister Dr Lackram Bodoe would see value in Young's commitment despite the government changing hands from the PNM to the UNC.
“This would be a beginning point to address the factors that push nurses out of the profession or to go abroad where they can earn two to four times their TT salary. It would also increase the number of people coming into the profession.”
He said he thought the government had stopped providing stipends to the schools which it did not have direct oversight for, as the USC is private and The UWI is managed by Caricom.
“Every government needs to do an analysis of what it is required for building human resource capacity, especially in healthcare. COSTAATT cannot train all the nurses needed for TT’s health care sector for us to have sustainable health care, so if the other schools are providing these additional human resources, government should provide nursing students with a stipend.”
[caption id="attachment_1154885" align="alignnone" width="788"] Health Minister Dr Lackram Bodoe. - File photo[/caption]
Stuart called on Bodoe to stand by his words at the South-West Regional Health Authority’s service for Nurses Appreciation Week 2025, where the minister said nurses were vital to the effective functioning of RHAs (regional health authorities) and the consistent delivery of care across health centres, hospitals and other medical facilities.
“He (Bodoe) said he saw the need to invest i
