Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter 

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my has called for the full op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal in this fis­cal year.

In May, Nadee Shanghie and her ba­by died at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal dur­ing a C-sec­tion op­er­a­tion.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris claimed that their deaths was due to the dis­tance be­tween Spey­side to Scar­bor­ough.

Mor­ris be­lieved that had the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal been ful­ly func­tion­al then their deaths could have been avoid­ed.

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day dur­ing the bud­get de­bate, Sen­a­tor Dil­lon-Re­my said when the sod was turned for the hos­pi­tal in 2019, she en­quired where the mon­ey was com­ing to fund its op­er­a­tions but got no an­swers.

The fa­cil­i­ty was opened in 2021 to the cost of $98M.

How­ev­er, that hos­pi­tal re­mains re­port­ed­ly un­der­utilised and is not a 24/7 fa­cil­i­ty.

The sen­a­tor posit­ed, “I am in­clined to ques­tion whether poor plan­ning is not the root cause for the pro­longed mo­bil­i­sa­tion of the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal.

“It is most like­ly that Rox­bor­ough will nev­er have a 24-hour ser­vice where you have in-pa­tient ob­stet­rics and gy­nae­col­o­gy, most like­ly if that was the sit­u­a­tion it would have had to be planned be­fore and that is what would have saved that ba­by’s life.”

How­ev­er, the To­ba­go-born sen­a­tor said such a fa­cil­i­ty was in­te­gral to the peo­ple of East To­ba­go.

“But I am say­ing the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the hos­pi­tal is im­por­tant and my un­der­stand­ing is that there should be a prop­er­ly staffed 24-hour emer­gency ser­vice at the Rox­bor­ough fa­cil­i­ty with an ef­fi­cient­ly work­ing am­bu­lance ser­vice and that would al­le­vi­ate much of the in­con­ve­nience, stress and risk for those who must come from the East of To­ba­go to the West of To­ba­go,” she told the Sen­ate.

Mean­while, the sen­a­tor firm­ly be­lieves that no de­vel­op­ment should take place in To­ba­go with­out the in­put and in­volve­ment of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

In mak­ing her con­tri­bu­tion in the Up­per House yes­ter­day, Sen­a­tor Dil­lon-Re­my ex­pressed op­ti­mism that some of the in­fra­struc­tur­al up­grades promised to To­ba­go would gen­er­ate much-need­ed rev­enue at a time the is­land is still reel­ing from the pan­dem­ic and oil spill.

But she not­ed that the THA lament­ed that it is be­ing left out of the loop re­gard­ing the ANR Robin­son Air­port Ex­pan­sion project.

“Even be­fore the pas­sage of the Self-Gov­er­nance Bill may I humbly sug­gest that no de­vel­op­men­tal project should oc­cur in To­ba­go with­out the in­volve­ment of the THA. And I say this re­gard­less of who is in Gov­ern­ment, ei­ther in To­ba­go or in Trinidad,” the sen­a­tor said.

The in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor al­so ex­pressed con­cerns with the al­lo­ca­tion giv­en the THA in the re­cent­ly laid bud­get.

To­ba­go is set to re­ceive $2.559 bil­lion.

She not­ed that THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine had asked for $3.9 bil­lion.

Dr Dil­lon-Re­my told the Par­lia­ment that while she does not want to sound un­grate­ful, the Gov­ern­ment must recog­nise that To­ba­go’s needs are evolv­ing.

“The To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing and so are the needs of the peo­ple of To­ba­go. The rate the pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing is ap­par­ent­ly faster than the growth rate of Trinidad be­cause peo­ple are flock­ing to To­ba­go. Par­tic­u­lar­ly as it deals with crime they are try­ing to get away from crime in Trinidad but un­for­tu­nate­ly things are chang­ing in To­ba­go right now,” Dil­lon-Re­my claimed.

She said that the al­lo­ca­tion does not put in­to con­text many of To­ba­go’s long-term li­a­bil­i­ties. — Akash Sama­roo