But back to the crux of the matter - the main reason for the union's press conference was because they felt that the Minister of Health was not prioritizing them. Rather, he set their meeting for a date after he returned from Taiwan.
Today he explained to us that he couldn't meet with them before because he was gathering the information that he would need based on their agenda.
But is that just an excuse, and he is "ghosting" the union? We asked him today.
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness
"Let me say I like how you put it, but I am no spin doctor. I will tell the truth and I will say I will see exactly what it is. The people at the union did write the Prime Minister and myself sometime in September or in the middle of September celebrations, activities. Right after I travel to the World Health PAHO Conference, I did see to the union representative, who also, by the way, is a member of the KHMH board. And part of their complaint is that the board is not listening. So I find it very, very ironic to be sitting on the board. Yet the board is not listening. Well, let me say this. I have never shied away or shunned anybody away from wanting to meet with anyone. I said to them, I'm prepared. In fact, let me say this. And for the record, we are we had scheduled at 4:00 Monday I so meeting because I told them I would not have been able to do the face to face at in this specific week. But can we do this and prepared to do this zoom meeting at 930 in the morning I got an agenda item one. I could have addressed immediately the issue of the medication concerns and supplies that they are talking about. But on the agenda, they have some other things that I believe needs the input of the Ministry of Finance and other people that has pensions, the issue of income tax. I cannot go there and make decisions on my own unilaterally. I have to consult. I have to be able to have the people that have that responsibility to be able to sit on is similar to what we did with the nurses when we went and we had to involve labour, we had to involve Ministry of Finance because of the Ministry of Health cannot make those decisions on its own."
"I am prepared, like I said to them and I said to and I wrote them back yesterday that in no way did I see I am not meeting with the union. I am prepared to meet with the union. And I said that the reason why I have asked for a postponement of the virtual meeting because I want to ensure that I have the necessary information in hand and an invite representative from the Ministry of Finance to be part of the discussion. So that I said to them that between the dates of November 12 and 16 and prepared an entity to have that sit down face to face with the executive and with representatives from my ministry, representatives from the Ministry of Finance and the representatives of the Union. And along with KHMH."
