Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar spread joy among 17 new moth­ers at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day as she pre­sent­ed ham­pers filled with milk, cloth­ing, wipes, di­a­pers and oth­er ba­by items.But while the moth­ers were hap­py, mem­bers of hos­pi­tal staff were dis­grun­tled, say­ing the Prime Min­is­ter should have al­so fo­cused on the de­plorable con­di­tions of the hos­pi­tal.

Nurs­es point­ed out gap­ing holes in the roof of the ma­ter­ni­ty ward, while a young doc­tor com­plained that there was on­ly one toi­let in Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment for both male and fe­male staff.A nurse at Ward 13 said: "They do­ing their (pub­lic re­la­tions) PR here, but she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) should take a walk down­stairs and see what does re­al­ly hap­pen in this place."Asked to elab­o­rate, the nurse said wards were of­ten over­crowd­ed and work­ers were un­com­fort­able with the san­i­ta­tion at the hos­pi­tal.Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, Med­ical Di­rec­tor Dr Lester Goetz, as well as chair­man of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, ac­com­pa­nied the Prime Min­is­ter on her tour.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the vis­it, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would ask Bo­doe to in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaints of in­ad­e­quate toi­let fa­cil­i­ties at Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment.She said the tour was part of her way of pay­ing trib­ute to the moth­ers of T&T and the staff of the hos­pi­tal."The staff at the hos­pi­tal are all out to work this morn­ing on Moth­er's Day and I want to thank them for their ser­vice to be peo­ple...They are work­ing so I can work too," she said, smil­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said that moth­ers must re­alise that they hold the fu­ture of T&T in their hands when they hold their chil­dren."It is won­der­ful to be with the young ones," she said.

"Chil­dren are our fu­ture and I spent the morn­ing with my grand­chil­dren, and my son and I hope to be back lat­er with them...I think chil­dren are very im­por­tant and spe­cial."To all moth­ers, do the best that you can and fa­thers as well...for moth­ers it is a very spe­cial day, know the love of na­tion is with you. You hold the fu­ture of the na­tion in your hands." Mean­while, some of the young moth­ers ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the ham­per.Karen Gill, 36, thanked Dr Ram­ba­jan for help­ing her through her de­liv­ery.

Gill said both her and her new­born daugh­ter, Faith, ex­pe­ri­enced com­pli­ca­tions dur­ing de­liv­ery, but Dr Ram­ba­jan saved them."Some­times the me­dia high­lights the bad things but I want to say that I had a good ex­pe­ri­ence here and I want to thank Dr Ram­ba­jan," Gill said.Bernadette Springer, whose hus­band Clifton Ho­sein Jobe, de­liv­ered their ba­by boy at their home, al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for her gifts. Springer said the ba­by, named Kris­t­ian, was her first born son and she was ex­cit­ed to have him hours be­fore the cel­e­bra­tion of Moth­ers Day.