RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

T&T women’s health doc­tor, Dr Adesh Sir­jus­ingh, who was among three re­gion­al pro­fes­sion­als pre­sent­ed with the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Award for Ex­cel­lence over the week­end, has pledged to con­tin­ue pi­o­neer­ing works in the med­ical field.

The award, a pres­ti­gious Caribbean ho­n­our be­stowed by the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion, recog­nis­es sig­nif­i­cant Caribbean achieve­ment and is aimed at sup­port­ing the pur­suit of ex­cel­lence in the re­gion.

Dr Sir­jus­ingh, to­geth­er with writer Joanne Hill­house (An­tigua and Bar­bu­da) and agri-sci­en­tist Dr Ma­hen­dra Per­saud (Guyana) were pre­sent­ed with their awards at a gala func­tion at the Hilton Trinidad, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day night.

Each awardee re­ceived TT$500,000.

Sir­jus­ingh, the Di­rec­tor of Women’s Health at the Min­istry of Health, was in­duct­ed in­to the An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga Awards Caribbean Ex­cel­lence Col­lege of Lau­re­ates for his achieve­ment in lead­ing the re­duc­tion of ma­ter­nal mor­tal­i­ty in T&T to a point where it is now cit­ed by the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) as a leader in the re­gion.

He al­so con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the mod­erni­sa­tion and up­grade of the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal dur­ing his time as Med­ical Chief of Staff of the East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty. Dr Sir­jus­ingh is cur­rent­ly lead­ing a Min­istry of Health pro­gramme to re­duce in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence us­ing da­ta-dri­ven in­ter­ven­tions.

Dur­ing the in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny, Sir­jus­ingh said: “It is an in­cred­i­ble priv­i­lege to be as­so­ci­at­ed with an or­gan­i­sa­tion that val­ues the pow­er of pub­lic ser­vice and recog­nis­es its role in shap­ing a brighter fu­ture for the Caribbean.”

He added: “There is still much work to be done. But I, too, am filled with hope, know­ing our col­lec­tive de­ter­mi­na­tion and in­tel­lect will pave the way for a bet­ter to­mor­row for our coun­try and for our re­gion.”

In her speech, Hill­house (Arts & Let­ters), who is among a col­lege of 57 Caribbean Lau­re­ates recog­nised for ex­cel­lence in hu­man en­deav­our that up­lifts the re­gion, paid homage to the re­gion’s melt­ing pot of cul­tures as her source of in­spi­ra­tion.

Mean­while, Per­saud (Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy), who spe­cialis­es in rice re­search and was re­spon­si­ble for sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creas­ing rice farm­ers’ yields in Guyana, said the award was al­so a vic­to­ry for farm­ers.

The awards are ad­min­is­tered by the phil­an­thropic arm of the ANSA McAL Group and pre­sent­ed an­nu­al­ly to Caribbean na­tion­als in the fields of Arts & Let­ters, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Pub­lic & Civic Con­tri­bu­tions, and Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion chair­man, An­drew Sab­ga, said the award pro­gramme, “is pro­vid­ing a lit­tle ex­tra vis­i­bil­i­ty to in­di­vid­u­als who are lead­ers in their re­spec­tive fields.”

“I am priv­i­leged, as chair­man of the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion, to be as­so­ci­at­ed with bring­ing this tal­ent to light. As al­ways, our lau­re­ates are mid-ca­reer pro­fes­sion­als and we’d like to be­lieve that the recog­ni­tion and fi­nan­cial award that they re­ceive will go a long way to ad­vanc­ing the work that they do. We are al­so ho­n­oured and of­ten amazed that we who em­ploy some 6,000 peo­ple across the re­gion - many of them com­mit­ted and con­sci­en­tious them­selves - con­tin­ue to be in­volved in recog­nis­ing and sup­port­ing peo­ple of such high cal­i­bre. We are grate­ful to the lau­re­ates that they have al­lowed us in­to their lives. We are ex­alt­ed by sit­ting in their com­pa­ny.”

Sab­ga said the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards were nat­u­ral­ly close to his fam­i­ly’s heart, “... not on­ly be­cause they car­ry my fa­ther’s name but be­cause the event – and the con­cept – was dear to him,” he told guests.

“He pur­sued ex­cel­lence him­self and hoped to find and pro­pel it. The re­gion was spe­cial to him – as a mar­ket and as his home. In his cre­ation of these awards, we see the re­al­i­sa­tion of his dream – the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and sup­port of Caribbean tal­ent.”

Sab­ga al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­tend thanks to the com­mit­tees and pan­els of oth­er “ex­cep­tion­al peo­ple who scru­ti­nise and eval­u­ate the many sub­mis­sions they re­ceive each year, weigh­ing the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions of who will be made a lau­re­ate.”

“Thank you to the five Coun­try Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tees and the Re­gion­al Em­i­nent Per­sons Pan­el for your earnest work in sup­port of Caribbean ex­cel­lence. This pro­gramme would not be pos­si­ble with­out you and your ef­forts. I am ex­treme­ly grat­i­fied to be host­ing a joint awards cer­e­mo­ny for all our lau­re­ates in one lo­ca­tion, af­ter a two-year hia­tus where we were so­cial­ly dis­tanced and ob­lig­at­ed to have much small­er cer­e­monies in each lau­re­ate’s home coun­try. I think there is an alche­my that comes from bring­ing ex­cep­tion­al peo­ple to­geth­er in the same space,” Sab­ga said in his com­men­da­tions.