By KEVA LIGHTBOURNE, Guardian Senior Reporter, kdl@nasguard.com

The long-awaited health insurance scheme for nurses is experiencing several hiccups and will not be implemented by month's end.

In addition, the Bahamas Nurses Union has no definitive date as to when that health initiative will come on stream.

BNU president, Cleola Hamilton, said yesterday that the Minister of Health, Hubert Minnis, has ordered the formation of a committee, with the inclusion of the union, to look into the situation in a bid to have that health plan implemented, but so far a date has not been set.

"It will not be the end of the month, I know that much," Hamilton told The Guardian via a telephone interview yesterday. The specifics on the date are not clearly defined. I had asked specifically what time-frame we are looking at, and I was not given a specific time," she explained.

Hamilton noted, however, that if the government attempts to use stalling tactics with regard to the issue it may find itself scrambling to put in place measures to avert possible strike action.

"I also made it clear that if at any point and time there is a delay tactic they are trying to do, then that is not acceptable and we will not sit down and allow that to happen. But from all accounts they said there was a directive from the minister to put together a team to ensure the implementation of it," Hamilton said.

In May, Hamilton told a press conference that group coverage for nurses will become a reality this budgetary year. At that time, she said according to the industrial agreement signed by the Ministry of Health, the Public Hospitals Authority and the BNU, this budgetary year 2008/2009 was set to be the year for the start-up of the insurance scheme.

The scheme was supposed to cover the 2,100 nurses who work under the PHA and Ministry of Health.

"If these persons do not come up with a clear and definitive date as to when this scheme will come into play, we are going to have to look at alternate measures with which to force the government's hand to say when. You can't have us hanging on with any delay tactics," Hamilton warned.

She explained that over the years, nurses have had to secure private insurance which has been a strain on their finances.