It’s fair at this point in time for the Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter, Jear­lean John, to say she is un­cer­tain about the date of the open­ing of the Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. She has done so on the ba­sis of her as­ser­tion that the build­ing is not yet ready for oc­cu­pa­tion by pa­tients at the new bil­lion-dol­lar-plus fa­cil­i­ty.

By all ac­counts, the new Cen­tral Block was des­per­ate­ly need­ed to re­place the old struc­ture, which was deemed to be un­safe through pro­fes­sion­al as­sess­ments. Un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment of Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the cer­ti­fied state of the old build­ing re­quired that it be de­mol­ished and a mod­ern build­ing with ex­pand­ed fa­cil­i­ties for pa­tients be con­struct­ed.

The new hos­pi­tal block lends it­self to pride in a na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion sit­u­at­ed in the cap­i­tal city. More­over, it is one which will bring mod­ern and ex­pand­ed treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties for pa­tients with se­ri­ous ail­ments.

How­ev­er, giv­en the his­to­ry of what can on­ly be deemed pet­ty re­ac­tions by the two ma­jor par­ties which have oc­cu­pied the gov­ern­ment since In­de­pen­dence, on oc­ca­sion de­lib­er­ate­ly seek­ing to ig­nore, ne­glect and even sab­o­tage the cre­ation of oth­er gov­ern­ments, the na­tion must not now tol­er­ate po­lit­i­cal games af­ter the ex­pen­di­ture of hun­dreds of mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars on a ma­jor project in a crit­i­cal sec­tor.

Min­is­ter John must show her aware­ness that the new block was con­struct­ed with the re­sources of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to fa­cil­i­tate the needs of the pop­u­la­tion.

More­over, the new build­ing, while sit­u­at­ed in the north of the coun­try, is a mod­ern hos­pi­tal which will pro­vide qual­i­ty health­care for the ben­e­fit of all the peo­ple of the coun­try

For the mo­ment, how­ev­er, the T&T Guardian is not as­crib­ing any of the above pet­ti­ness and po­lit­i­cal up­man­ship to Min­is­ter John, who we know in her pub­lic deal­ings to be a “straight­for­ward woman from Char­lot­teville” not giv­en to play­ing pol­i­tics on mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance.

What this ed­i­to­r­i­al is do­ing, is mak­ing Min­is­ter John, the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment aware that at least this me­dia house, ful­ly aware of the po­lit­i­cal games that the two ma­jor par­ties have in the past played with the na­tion­al re­sources of Trinidad and To­ba­go, is mon­i­tor­ing her close­ly and will sound the warn­ing if it be­comes ap­par­ent that such an un­der­hand game is be­ing played out with the Cen­tral Block at the Port-of- Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

The fa­cil­i­ty was built to pro­vide for the en­tire pop­u­la­tion and we shall be watch­ing you, Min­is­ter John, for the ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of same on the ba­sis of what you have claimed to be your track record in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ment and state pro­grammes, one of hon­esty and gen­uine con­cern for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

What Min­is­ter John should do now then, is to give the na­tion a tech­ni­cal up­date on the works and the pro­ject­ed fin­ish date.