Fourteen nurses from the St Philip District Hospital are demanding urgent action after one of their colleagues, a Ghanaian nurse, was stabbed in the neck just metres away from the hospital compound on Friday night.
The shocking attack has left the close-knit team traumatised and angry, reigniting longstanding concerns about the perilous route between Hilda Skeene Primary School in Ruby and the District Hospital in Jezreel, a dimly lit, isolated seven-minute walk that nurses say they have been pleading for authorities to address for years.
“It hurts for me to get up and go to sleep. It’s the worst feeling ever. It should have never, ever happened,” one shaken nurse told Barbados TODAY, her voice trembling.
The nurse recounted how the victim, one of the first Ghanaian nurses to work at the facility, was ambushed on her way to work around 8 p.m.
“She was attacked outside, on the road approaching the hospital . . . she was not robbed or anything. The guy just stabbed her in her neck,” the nurse said. “She was just laying on the ground helpless, bleeding…it was really horrible.”
According to the nurses, a colleague’s relative who was nearby heard her scream and ran to her aid, alerting staff on duty.
“They helped her onto the compound. The gentleman who did it was seen riding a bicycle. Some nurses tried to follow him, but they lost him.”
Police Communications and Public Affairs Officer, Acting Inspector Ryan Brathwaite, confirmed the incident, stating that investigations were ongoing. He said he could not state the nationality of the nurse at the time.
According to reports, the injured nurse is in stable condition.
The Ministry of Health began recruiting nurses from Ghana during the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic. The very first group arrived in June 2020, as part of a strategic effort to reinforce the island’s strained healthcare workforce.
The nurses said they were deeply concerned not only about the attack itself but about what the nurses described as “silence from the top.”
“No one from the Ministry of Health or the chief nursing officer reached out to us, not even a call,” a nurse said.
“I didn’t expect them to come in the night, but at least this (Saturday) morning someone could have called, could have checked in. Nobody didn’t tell the nurses nothing, and I felt like like nobody didn’t care.”
According to the nurses, hospital management said counselling services would be made available, and the nurses were told that sessions could not be arranged until Monday.
Another nurse said she was deeply shaken after witnessing her colleague lying in a pool of blood.
“It got me really traumatised, because knowing that could have been me on that ground . . . I couldn’t really cope with that.”
She continued, “I would like something to be done. I would like security for the hospital because it’s only a watchman that’s there, and the watchman can’t be in an office all the time.”
At present, there are about 14 nurses working the night shift, many of whom finish work between 7 a.m and 8 a.m. and must walk the lonely stretch. The nurses confirmed that past incidents, including robbery and even alleged sexual assault, had already occurred on that same road.
“It’s not the first time,” one nurse alleged. “Another work colleague got robbed already, and nothing happened. Nothing changed. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to the nurses.”
Suggestions from the group were both practical and urgent: better lighting along the route, external security cameras at the hospital, and a dedicated shuttle service similar to those used by other government institutions.
“We can have a bus similar to how staff at the airport have a transport bus. The nurses do not mind paying for it,” a nurse noted. “But give us something. Give us a chance to feel safe.”
Whether day or night, the nurses insisted, the danger remains the same.
“You are not safe, whether it be day or night… it is not safe for us…How many more of us have to bleed before someone listens?” (SZB)
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