Shas­tri Boodan

Homes for the aged op­er­at­ing in To­ba­go have been warned to get their act in or­der.

Mak­ing this call, Dr Faith B.Yis­rael, the Sec­re­tary of the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, said the let­ter of the law would be ap­plied when it comes to fa­cil­i­ties tak­ing care of the el­der­ly.

She was at the time field­ing ques­tions from the me­dia on Fri­day at the Buc­coo Health Fa­cil­i­ty when To­ba­go host­ed its first vol­un­tary blood dri­ve. B.Yis­rael said per­sons can no longer open and op­er­ate any fa­cil­i­ty un­less all of the re­quire­ments are met.

How­ev­er, B.Yis­rael said she could not give any up­dates on a home for the el­der­ly at the Store Bay Lo­cal Road that was closed down ear­li­er this week and the res­i­dents had to be re­lo­cat­ed.

She said, "There is leg­is­la­tion known as the Pri­vate Hos­pi­tals Act that is sup­posed to gov­ern and is sup­posed to de­ter­mine who has a li­cense to be a home for the aged. It's one of the leg­is­la­tions that have been on the books and we have not re­al­ly used it be­fore and the Min­istry of Health and the THA have start­ed the process of en­sur­ing that all of our Homes in To­ba­go and in Trinidad are ac­tu­al­ly li­cens­es."

B.Yis­rael said the process of in­spect­ing homes for com­pli­ance has al­ready start­ed. She said it would be up to in­di­vid­u­als to ask homes for their li­cens­es which should be done by the end of the year. B.Yis­rael said there are around 8 of­fi­cial homes for the aged. How­ev­er, there are in­di­vid­u­als who have start­ed op­er­a­tions with a hand­ful of el­der­ly per­sons.

"We are en­sur­ing that the in­di­vid­u­als who do that, do it the cor­rect way."

B.Yis­rael said To­ba­go would be en­cour­ag­ing per­sons to do­nate blood vol­un­tar­i­ly. She said two chairs for blood donors have been ac­quired which can be sta­tioned at any point on the is­land. She said tra­di­tion­al­ly in­di­vid­u­als have on­ly do­nat­ed when rel­a­tives or per­sons known to them were in need of blood.

She said the new sys­tem seeks to en­sure a re­li­able sup­ply of blood for any­one in need. Dr Vic­tor Wheel­er, the Med­ical Chief of Staff of the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) said the stock of blood in To­ba­go has been low for years, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Dr Wheel­er said the is­land needs around 800 units of blood an­nu­al­ly and the TRHA is seek­ing to get around 600-700 donors to give blood 2-3 times an­nu­al­ly.