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The Fiji Nursing Association and the Ministry of Health are at loggerheads over the actual reasons being given for nurses resigning in the past year.

Association President, Doctor Alisi Vudiniabola claims a number of nurses are resigning from the health workforce due to stress, fatigue, and lack of compensation.

Dr Vudiniabola claims the nurses have been working 12-hour shifts and are not paid meals, travel, and other allowances.

“One Hospital in the West is already 24 short of its establishment and four nurses are waiting to leave as we speak, they’ve given in their resignation. This is just a small hospital. And other bigger hospitals have bigger numbers.”

Doctor Vudiniabola further claims some of the nurses were unable to carry forward their annual leave.

“Nurses who have pending leave from previous years and they would lose certain number of leave if they take them across the New Year. Most of them have not taken their leave for the past two years”.

She adds the staff nurses are also not happy about the isolation period once they test positive of COVID-19.

The isolation period has been reduced from 10 to three days.

When FBC News asked Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong about the issues raised by the nursing body, he gave us a totally different view of why the nurses have resigned.

“I am not too sure, but when they test positive they go into isolation. Once we render a person non-infectious they go back into work. Now I cannot verify that the fifty who have resigned is because of what they saying they resigned for. I can verify that quite a few that are resigning because of lucrative offers overseas. I am a bit puzzled, because I actually see all the letters that come to me and they actually write down why they are resigning and none of them have quoted this reason. So I am a bit puzzled.”

There are currently over 3000 nurses employed by the MOH.