Nurses are hopping mad over statements made by Dr Sheila Campbell-Forrester, chief medical officer (CMO).
President of the Nurses' Association of Jamaica (NAJ), Edith Allwood-Anderson, has demanded an apology.
The argument has arisen as a result of comments the CMO made to The Sunday Gleaner surrounding a claim that public-health nurses and other health workers had been paid approximately $1 billion for extra work having to do with containing malaria long after the disease had been contained.
In addition, the statement pointed to nurses being paid, even though they had not dealt with a single case of the disease.
Allwood-Anderson has refuted the claim and said the CMO's response to those claims tarnished the character of nurses and that she had to take a stance in the matter.
"We are on red alert and the nurses will implement certain actions, which will not be conducive to what we expect to be positive in the working relationship with the Ministry of Health," she said.
She said the public-health nurses at the Norman Manley International Airport had not been paid for their sessions since January, and malaria cases had not been controlled, as up to two weeks ago, there had been new cases in the island.
In a release, Rudyard Spencer, minister of health, said, after receiving a report on the matter, there had been no improprieties in the payments.
According to the ministry, the payments amounted to approximately $1.3 million and not the billion-dollar figure earlier reported.
The statement went on to say the ministry was reviewing the response to malaria and whether activities needed to be continued. The programme ended in June.
The statement made no reference to Allwood-Anderson's claims that public-health nurses at the Norman Manley International Airport had not been paid. The NAJ president said she had given the public-health nurses the go-ahead to cease duties at the airport facility until they were paid.
The public-health nurses have been placed at airports since a malaria outbreak in 2006.
Adding to the list of grouses the NAJ has is the long wait for the completion of agreements in a reclassification exercise. This issue, Allwood-Anderson explained, had been a problem since 2006.