Gail Alexan­der

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and banker Pro­fes­sor Ster­ling Frost have been award­ed the coun­try’s high­est ho­n­our - the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

And oth­er mem­bers of the Min­istry of Health’s team who led T&T through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic have al­so tak­en top ho­n­ours in this year’s Re­pub­lic Day awards.

The list of awardees to mark T&T’s 46th an­niver­sary of be­com­ing a Re­pub­lic was is­sued last night by Pres­i­dent’s House.

Paras­ram and tops the list of re­cip­i­ents who will be pre­sent­ed with their awards to­day by the Pres­i­dent at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain. It will be the first re­turn to a nor­mal full length award func­tion since 2019, as events in 2020/21 were brief ver­sions due to the COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

T&T’s top ho­n­our is award­ed for dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to the coun­try.

Paras­ram, 44, re­ceived the award in the sphere of pub­lic health. He has been laud­ed in many quar­ters for the way in which he’s led T&T’s bat­tle on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had re­peat­ed­ly cred­it­ed Paras­ram with sound lead­er­ship in the COVID bat­tle and paid trib­ute to him up to re­cent­ly.

Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day stat­ed, “Dr Roshan Paras­ram served his coun­try with dis­tinc­tion dur­ing the un­cer­tain­ty and dis­rup­tion of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“As Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, he stew­ard­ed the na­tion through highs and lows, his un­flap­pable de­meanour and pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach pro­vid­ing much-need­ed calm amidst the COVID-19 storm. He quick­ly be­came a house­hold name as he tire­less­ly pro­vid­ed up­dates and crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, en­gag­ing the me­dia and pub­lic dai­ly. He has brought his pro­fes­sion to new heights and giv­en un­wa­ver­ing, dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Frost won the ORTT for his con­tri­bu­tion in the spheres of Bank­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice.

The Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) for Long and Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice to pro­mote na­tion­al wel­fare or strength­en com­mu­ni­ty spir­it will al­so be pre­sent­ed to oth­er Health team lead­ers: Dr Av­ery Hinds (Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor, Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Di­vi­sion), Dr Michelle Trot­man (Co-or­di­na­tor and Health Ser­vice Lec­tur­er, UTT) and Prin­ci­pal Med­ical of­fi­cer Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards and Pro­fes­sor Chris­tine Car­ring­ton (Pro­fes­sor of Mol­e­c­u­lar Ge­net­ics and Vi­rol­o­gy).

The list of awardees in­cludes a host of peo­ple who have con­tributed to na­tion build­ing, from en­ter­tain­er ex­tra­or­di­naire Machel Mon­tano, late ca­lyp­son­ian Sed­ley “Pen­guin” Joseph and oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, to for­mer PNM politi­cians Jar­rette Nar­ine, Mar­i­lyn Gor­don and PNM coun­cil­lor Mar­tin Ter­ry Ron­don - T&T’s longest serv­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

Mon­tano and Ron­don are among awardees re­ceiv­ing the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold). This is award­ed for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice in any field of hu­man en­deav­our, or for gal­lantry or oth­er hu­mane ac­tion to T&T.

Awardees al­so in­clude an ar­ray of ath­letes from track star Com­mon­wealth gold medal­lists Jereem “The Dream” Richards and cy­clist Nicholas Paul, plus oth­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in in­ter­na­tion­al events.

Three awards for gal­lantry

Awards for gal­lantry will go to se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Evans Hinds, stu­dent Gregg Man­nette and boat en­gi­neer Otis Mor­ris (posthu­mous­ly) for sav­ing the lives of oth­er per­sons.

The Hum­ming­bird Medal (Bronze) is be­ing award­ed to them.

Hinds saved the lives of Zaria and Jeni­ceia Burke, who nar­row­ly es­caped their burn­ing house in Mar­aval on Ju­ly 26, 2021.

Hinds was quick to re­spond to fran­tic cries for help and spared no ef­fort in try­ing to save the oc­cu­pants of the house. Demon­strat­ing ex­cep­tion­al brav­ery and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Hinds used a sledge­ham­mer to break through bur­glar proof­ing and man­aged to gain ac­cess to the burn­ing struc­ture, free­ing the two chil­dren.

Al­so re­ceiv­ing the award will be 15-year-old sec­ondary school stu­dent Gregg Man­nette, who res­cued a drown­ing man at No Man’s Land, To­ba­go, on April 7. Man­nette sprang in­to ac­tion, swim­ming about 20 me­tres in less than 10 sec­onds, and was able to pull the man to safe­ty.

Pres­i­dent’s House stat­ed, “In a world where young peo­ple are in need of pos­i­tive role mod­els, Mas­ter Man­nette stands as a bea­con of hope.”

A posthu­mous award for gal­lantry will al­so be award­ed to boat en­gi­neer Otis Mor­ri­son, who sac­ri­ficed his life to save a drown­ing 11-year-old girl at Guapo Beach on Au­gust 21, 022. Re­spond­ing to her cries for help, Mor­ri­son res­cued the child and kept her afloat un­til help ar­rived. He’s been laud­ed as a true hero.

Mor­ris’ wid­ow, Mrs. Keishal­lene Lewis-Mor­ri­son, will ac­cept the award to­day.

Awardees in the fields of en­ter­tain­ment, cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment and the arts in­clude Sed­ley “Pen­guin” Joseph (posthu­mous­ly), Neil “Iw­er” George, Mark “Con­tender” John and Joseph La Placelière (Mighty Lin­go).