A prob­lem­at­ic pro­cure­ment sys­tem and a “woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate” staffing es­tab­lish­ment have left pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties in a state of pre­car­i­ous dys­func­tion, ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA). While the pub­lic has long com­plained of a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing pa­tient ex­pe­ri­ence, the front­line work­ers tasked with main­tain­ing the sys­tem now ad­mit they are ter­ri­fied of the very wards they man­age.

Faced with what they call a “ter­ri­fy­ing” si­lence from the Gov­ern­ment and a pub­lic health sys­tem on the verge of col­lapse, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) has di­rect­ed its mem­ber­ship to down tools the mo­ment their eight-hour shifts end un­less they are paid full over­time. The in­dus­tri­al di­rec­tive fol­lows ex­plo­sive al­le­ga­tions of a “rack­et” lev­elled against nurs­ing staff by North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) Chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh.

Af­ter com­plaints about the late ad­di­tion of flights for East­er, the THA Di­vi­sion of Tourism and Caribbean Air­lines met on April 1 to dis­cuss air­lift for peak pe­ri­ods, with par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis on the To­ba­go Car­ni­val, sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1.

A call is be­ing made for a com­plete and thor­ough foren­sic au­dit of the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed af­ter the most re­cent au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments of the state-owned ag­gre­gate com­pa­ny re­vealed loss­es of more than $23 mil­lion in fis­cal 2021 and 2020.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has ex­tend­ed East­er greet­ings to cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, urg­ing re­flec­tion on the mes­sage of the sea­son and its rel­e­vance to na­tion­al life.

Even as the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice main­tains that cur­rent dry con­di­tions are typ­i­cal for this time of year, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing for stronger en­force­ment of fire pre­ven­tion laws as fire­fight­ers con­tend with fre­quent bush­fires across the coun­try.

De­spite a lack of Gov­ern­ment sup­port for the 2026 Point Fortin Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, May­or Clyde James says the fes­tiv­i­ties will go on as he awaits a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen on Tues­day.

While most peo­ple in Trinidad will be re­turn­ing to work on Tues­day af­ter the long East­er week­end, in To­ba­go the fes­tiv­i­ties will con­tin­ue as al­most a cen­tu­ry of tra­di­tion will be on dis­play at the an­nu­al Buc­coo Goat and Crab Race Fes­ti­val at the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty.

Deputy Chief Scout Ker­wyn Gar­cia host­ed the first overnight Scout camp at Pres­i­dent’s House from March 31 to April 1.

Two men were ar­rest­ed and a firearm and nar­cotics seized dur­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es in the West­ern and East­ern Di­vi­sions on Fri­day.

A 69-year-old mon­ey lender was beat­en by ban­dits af­ter an­swer­ing the door to a young woman on Thurs­day night.

Po­lice are once again urg­ing the pub­lic to be wary of scams where peo­ple are asked to de­posit mon­ey to strangers in ex­change for items ad­ver­tised as be­ing for sale, af­ter a 30-year-old phar­ma­cist was tricked out of $8000.