?The In­do-Trin­ba­go Equal­i­ty Coun­cil (ITEC) is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning to launch a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to al­le­ga­tions of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against East In­di­an doc­tors at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The call was made by coun­cil chair­man De­vant Ma­haraj.

It fol­lowed a claim by Ca­roni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh who said in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day that eth­nic cleans­ing was tak­ing place at the med­ical in­sti­tu­tion, forc­ing doc­tors of East In­di­an de­scent to leave. Ma­haraj said the com­mis­sion should be set up to "in­ves­ti­gate the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against In­di­an work­ers in the pub­lic sec­tor."

He said the mat­ter "mer­its se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion in light of the in­crease in med­ical neg­li­gence cas­es in­volv­ing for­eign doc­tors at our hos­pi­tals." Both Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Colm Im­bert, de­scribed Gopeesingh's claim as be­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble in the ex­treme.

But ITEC yes­ter­day spoke out against Man­ning's con­dem­na­tion of Gopeesingh's al­le­ga­tion. Man­ning had told Par­lia­ment that such claims should not be made in the na­tion's Par­lia­ment. "ITEC con­demns the Prime Min­is­ter's state­ments that the plight of the dis­crim­i­nat­ed In­di­an is not an ap­pro­pri­ate item for dis­cus­sion in Par­lia­ment," the re­lease said.

Ma­haraj said the Coun­cil not­ed "with in­ter­est that the Prime Min­is­ter de­clares this to be Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion and in­di­cat­ed that the (al­le­ga­tion of) racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against In­di­ans should not be de­bat­ed 'whether there is ev­i­dence or not.' "