Gail Alexan­der

There are 1,640 for­eign doc­tors em­ployed in the State sec­tor, yet 300 lo­cal doc­tors can­not get jobs—and while T&T needs 1,500 nurs­es, a num­ber of nurs­es are "beg­ging" for jobs," says UNC MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh.

Gopeesingh drew at­ten­tion to the sit­u­a­tion in yes­ter­day's 2019 bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment. Cit­ing health sec­tor de­fi­cien­cies, he an­gri­ly slammed Gov­ern­ment for mis­man­age­ment of the sec­tor.

He said, "The health sec­tor's in cri­sis! Peo­ple are say­ing it across T&T. How many peo­ple are con­fi­dent in us­ing the sec­tor— the con­fi­dence isn't there!"

He said that al­so ap­plied to PNM MPs who've used pri­vate hos­pi­tals like St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre or who went abroad like Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley (for a Prostate Spe­cif­ic Anti­gen test) and oth­ers.

But whether pri­vate or pub­lic hos­pi­tal, he said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar stayed in T&T for med­ical at­ten­tion.

Apart from staffing is­sues, Gopeesingh list­ed ills in the sec­tor: over­crowd­ed wards, long wait­ing time for hos­pi­tal beds, CDAP drug short­age which he said the Health Min­is­ter is now ad­mit­ting, ceil­ings in some in­sti­tu­tions falling in wards and op­er­at­ing the­atres, lack of drugs, equip­ment and mod­ern parts in some hos­pi­tals.

Gopeesingh said Gov­ern­ment wasn't fo­cused on pre­ven­ta­tive/ear­ly screen­ing for obe­si­ty and can­cers, one of T&T's wide­spread prob­lems along heart dis­ease, di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion.

Of the an­nu­al 12,000 deaths among 6,000 men and 6,000 women, he said can­cer ac­count­ed for 2,000, heart (2,000), di­a­betes (1,500) and hy­per­ten­sion (1,000

Gopeesingh said mam­mo­gram ma­chines and equip­ment to do post PAP smear in­ves­ti­ga­tions were lack­ing in hos­pi­tals and there are an­nu­al­ly 100 cer­vi­cal can­cer deaths, 200 prostate can­cer deaths and 200 breast can­cer deaths."The Health Min­is­ter's mea­sures aren't im­pact­ing the pub­lic," he added.

De­tail­ing the PP gov­ern­ment health ini­tia­tives, Gopeesingh said in 2012 the Blood Bank had opened on Sat­ur­days—some­thing which Gov­ern­ment plans to do now. He cit­ed in­creased at­ten­tion for de­pres­sion and men­tal is­sues among fu­ture UNC plans.

Gopeesingh said an­nu­al PNM bud­gets were all the same and "Noth­ing's done,.... they (Gov­ern­ment) say they're do­ing a great job , yet they're ask­ing for UNC MP's help - we'll help you ...pack your bags . Call elec­tions now!"