Bahrain: Better pay scale for nurses!

By REBECCA TORR
AN improved pay scale and allowances for government nurses will be submitted for Cabinet approval within two weeks, officials said yesterday. The new cadre will benefit 2,597 nursing staff, including 223 trained practical nurses, as well as another 600 nurses who work in primary health care.

Trained practical nurses, known before as attendants, assist the nurses. The Health Ministry phased out the programme for trained practical nurses and now has a bachelor programme.

According to the new cadre, nurses will either be on a professional or a general track, Health Ministry nursing services for hospitals chief Aisha Al Qaisi said at a Press conference held at the ministry's offices in Juffair yesterday.

At least 400 nurses who hold bachelor degrees will be put on a professional pay scale track. Others will be put on a general pay scale which will be raised by one grade.

Both tracks offer nurses about 15 per cent increase on their current pay scale. Nurses start at a basic wage of BD300 a month.

The new cadre also covers increases to the allowances, which are now BD40. It requests an allowance for nurses working in critical areas such as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Critical Care Unit and Burns Unit and another for nurses working in wards and primary health care.

It also asks for an increase to the uniform allowance and for the ministry to provide laundry services for uniforms.

According to the new cadre, those in the chief and deputy nursing services positions are eligible for chairperson allowance.

Ms Al Qaisi said the ministry began working on the nursing cadre, which is in its second stage, in February 2005.

At that time, they requested the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) to begin a study on the cadre and a joint committee was formed with representatives from nursing services in the ministry, CSB and Bahrain Nursing Society (BNS).

After two-and-a-half years of discussing the cadre proposal, bonuses and allowances, the results of the study were issued by the CSB on May 26 this year and submitted to the ministry for review with the view to it being implemented after Cabinet approval.

Ms Al Qaisi said the BNS and all ministry nurses had been informed of the progress of the cadre since 2001.

She said it took several years to finalise because the ministry wanted to get as many nurses as possible to qualify for the professional track.

"Gradually we want to limit the number of general nurses and increase the specialists," said Ms Al Qaisi.

"I hope this cadre will be implemented soon after this gap, we worked from our heart to get nurses on the pay scale.

"We have been speaking to the CSB since 2005, now we have reached an agreement and it will be raised with the Cabinet.

"We hope the Cabinet will approve it as soon as possible and once it is approved, we will go ahead and implement it."

CSB wages and compensation acting director Yousif Ahmed Mohammed said he believed the new cadre was a significant improvement on the old one.

"We are finalising the cadre and benefits allowance, it is in the final stage and then we will submit it to the Cabinet within a week or two weeks," he added.

Ms Al Qaisi announced that the ministry would increase the number of deputy chief nurses from four to six and they would be rotated every two to four years.

There are currently two chief nurses, one in public care and the other in primary.

Ms Al Qaisi said the ministry initially began work on upgrading the nursing cadre in 2001.

The first stage of the cadre, which was to raise the pay scale for 2,219 nursing staff by two grades, was implemented in July 2004.

Practical nurses and nursing aids in medical services also had their grades raised by two pay scales. "This was like an average of 20 per cent increase, but for some staff it was even as much as 25 to 30pc increase," said Health Ministry human resources acting director Abdul Samer Muftar.

At this time Bahrainis represented 99pc of nursing staff and 98pc of head nurses.

Ms Al Qaisi said the number of incentives such as cash awards, employee of the month and so on had increased since 2004 and more than 600 nurses had benefited.

She said the ministry was opening new programmes and facilities to encourage more nurses to the industry. "We have a shortage of nurses at the moment in the general ward. During the day we have one nurse to eight patients and at night one nurse to 11 patients," she said.

Services

"Our aim is to meet the international standard of one nurse for four patients.

"We are already at the international standard of one nurse to every patient in the Intensive Care Unit and one nurse to every two patients in the cardiac ward.

"We try to increase our manpower by 200 every year."

Health Ministry primary and public health care nursing services chief Seham Al Rashid and CSB project leader Hashim Al Hashim also attended the Press conference.

The announcement of the cadre follows calls by the BNS for better pay for Bahrain nurses.

Last week more than 6,000 nurses and others in the health field began wearing coloured ribbons demanding a 50 per cent pay rise and more staff. A petition is being signed by the nurses to be presented to Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Further action will be planned if there is no positive response. BNS was not available for comment yesterday.

---Gulf Daily News