In a time when glob­al un­cer­tain­ties dom­i­nate the head­lines and pub­lic trust in in­sti­tu­tions is of­ten chal­lenged, it is both heart­en­ing and vi­tal to recog­nise and com­mend acts of com­pas­sion, uni­ty, and lead­er­ship that place our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens—our chil­dren—at the heart of na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

The re­cent reaf­fir­ma­tion and re­in­force­ment of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund (CLF), fol­low­ing the 2021 rec­om­men­da­tions of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) in­to the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund Au­thor­i­ty, is a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the en­dur­ing be­lief that every child de­serves a chance at life, re­gard­less of fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stance.

As a physi­cian, I have seen the pain and help­less­ness that par­ents face when their chil­dren are af­flict­ed with a life-threat­en­ing ill­ness. As a par­ent, I know the need and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ease any pain your lit­tle one may suf­fer.

I chaired this JSC, along with mem­bers Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Nigel De Fre­itas, Khadi­jah Ameen, Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal and the late Lisa Mor­ris-Julien. Every mem­ber present tran­scend­ed par­ty lines and was pas­sion­ate and unit­ed in the de­lib­er­a­tions.

The fund was es­tab­lished with the mis­sion of pro­vid­ing ur­gent and life-sav­ing med­ical care to chil­dren from fi­nan­cial­ly dis­ad­van­taged fam­i­lies who would oth­er­wise not be able to af­ford treat­ment abroad. Since its in­cep­tion, the fund has stood as a bea­con of hope for hun­dreds of fam­i­lies nav­i­gat­ing the dark­est mo­ments of their lives, of­fer­ing not just fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance but some­thing far more pow­er­ful—hope.

Among the JSC’s key rec­om­men­da­tions were im­proved over­sight mech­a­nisms, ex­pand­ed el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria, in­creased fund­ing, stream­lin­ing of ap­pli­ca­tion process­es, and en­hanced col­lab­o­ra­tion with pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tions to max­imise re­sources.

Time is of the essence to many of these chil­dren and these rec­om­men­da­tions should have been placed on the front burn­er. It hurts me to see mil­lions of dol­lars wast­ed on emp­ty van­i­ty projects while par­ents were beg­ging for help.

Tris­ton Ram­lochan, 14, who had acute lym­phoblas­tic leukaemia, died be­fore he could be flown to In­dia for treat­ment. His first flight was can­celled and he be­came too crit­i­cal­ly ill to trav­el.

That the JSC rec­om­men­da­tions have now been ac­cept­ed and are be­ing ac­tive­ly pur­sued as one of the first pieces of leg­is­la­tion passed by this ad­min­is­tra­tion, is a clear in­di­ca­tion the Gov­ern­ment un­der­stands and em­braces its moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to safe­guard the well-be­ing of our chil­dren.

Dur­ing the de­lib­er­a­tions, I in­tro­duced cor­re­spon­dence from Is­sa Ali, pres­i­dent of the So­ci­ety of In­her­it­ed and Se­vere Blood Dis­or­ders, who made a plea to ex­tend the cri­te­ria for ap­pli­cants. Of our 100 tha­lassemic pa­tients, 30 of them may need bone mar­row trans­plan­ta­tion.

In 2018, sev­en-year-old Jovi Mitchell, a Be­ta Tha­lassemia Ma­jor pa­tient, was re­ject­ed for fund­ing from the CLF be­cause his con­di­tion was not life-threat­en­ing. The fam­i­ly had to find $1.5 mil­lion for bone mar­row trans­plan­ta­tion.

This child had to get blood trans­fu­sions every two weeks - some­times en­coun­ter­ing blood short­ages, the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal dis­tress of hav­ing to get in­tra­venous ac­cess, the ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­ad­van­tage of miss­ing school. The par­ents al­so missed work, thus ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ex­as­per­a­tion and help­less­ness. Thank­ful­ly, Sec­tion 4(2) (b) of the CLF Act was amend­ed by sub­sti­tut­ing the words “life-threat­en­ing ill­ness­es” for “life-lim­it­ing ill­ness­es.”

In her con­tri­bu­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called out the for­mer gov­ern­ment for its “cal­lous treat­ment of chil­dren in the last nine years” and ques­tioned why dur­ing that time, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion did not see it nec­es­sary to make ad­just­ments to the fund, even af­ter a JSC re­port on the fund in 2021 rec­om­mend­ed changes be made. She con­clud­ed, ”To­day, I want to ded­i­cate these amend­ments to all the chil­dren, all the par­ents who un­for­tu­nate­ly lost their chil­dren’s lives wait­ing for the funds. And we must make a promise to­day to do all that we can to nev­er again al­low this to hap­pen.”

I ap­plaud Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion in em­brac­ing these re­forms. This has reaf­firmed that car­ing for our most vul­ner­a­ble is not just a slo­gan, but a guid­ing prin­ci­ple of na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

It was un­der the lead­er­ship of our PM that the fund was en­vi­sioned and es­tab­lished—born from a promise that no par­ent should ever have to bury a child for want of med­ical treat­ment. Her com­mit­ment to the cause was not on­ly po­lit­i­cal but deeply hu­man, and that spir­it con­tin­ues to an­i­mate the fund’s work to this day.

The chil­dren whose lives have been saved by the fund may nev­er know the names of those who made their re­cov­ery pos­si­ble. But their laugh­ter, their fu­ture, and their pres­ence among us are the most pow­er­ful lega­cy of this pol­i­cy. They are liv­ing proof of what we can ac­com­plish when we put hu­man­i­ty first.