Minister of Health and Environment Rudyard Spencer assists Anthonette Patterson, a Kingston Public Hospital nurse, into the driver's seat of one of the Toyota Coaster buses handed over to the island's nurses, yesterday. The buses were purchased through the National Health Fund. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

When Health and Environment Minister Rudyard Spencer handed over four bus keys yesterday, a few of the nurses who collected skipped and smiled with glee.

Seconds later, they were all in one of the buses going for a test drive with the minister behind the wheel.

"Yeahhh!" they said, clapping as 'driver' Spencer drove around the grounds of the Bustamante Hospital for Children in St. Andrew.

Based on the concerns expressed by Edith Allwood- Anderson, president of the Nurses' Association of Jamaica (NAJ), during the earlier ceremony, one would understand the nurses' joy at having received the buses.

"On their way home, nurses are faced with violence, abuse, rape and, in their uniform, they are running all over the place in the night," said Mrs. Allwood-Anderson.

After the ceremony, she told The Gleaner she was "awfully pleased, tremendously grateful" for the buses.

The four 2008 Toyota Coaster buses, funded at a cost of more than $14.8 million, by the National Health Fund, will be used to transport nurses, particularly those working on late shifts.

Of the buses handed over, one will serve the Bustamante Hospital, the National Chest Hospital, the Hope Institute and Sir John Golding facilities.

Another will go to the Kingston Public and Victoria Jubilee hospitals. Nurses employed at the Bellevue Hospital will use another, and the fourth was given to the Mandeville Regional Hospital.

The NAJ president said the granting of the buses was part of the organisation's salary negotiations.