The push by the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) for a doubling of the salaries paid to its members by the current administration, may not materialise any time soon, but the health sector group has been assured that "better days are coming under the Jamaica Labour Party Government".

The NAJ says it will hold the Government to a promise made while it was in Opposition to double the pay of nurses.

"I would like to give the commitment that, as Minister of Finance, that would have to be just the starting position," Mr. Shaw told nurses at a Founders' Day function on July 19, 2006.

Speaking with journalists yesterday after the sitting of Parliament, Mr. Shaw said he remained sympathetic to the plight of the nurses who have been "grossly underpaid".

Mr. Shaw had a message for the NAJ President, Edith Allwood- Anderson. "I would say to her better days are coming under the Labour Party Government because what we are going to do is to run the economy in such a way that the Government will be able to pay our public sector workers, including our nurses, a better and more comfortable living wage".

He said the only way "we could do that is when we grow the economy by increments of six to 10 per cent per year".

Mr. Shaw insisted that nurses in Jamaica were poorly remunerated, (and) "something has to be done about that".

He said his colleague Minister, Dwight Nelson would now have to address the issue, "as to how these problems can be mitigated in the short and in the medium and in the long term".