Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says while he has ac­cept­ed the apol­o­gy from the chair­man of the Can­cer So­ci­ety about the avail­abil­i­ty of can­cer drugs, the dam­age has al­ready been done.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day as he made his way to sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the Red House, the Health Min­is­ter said the com­ments have im­pact­ed the morale of on­col­o­gists across the coun­try.

On Wednes­day, dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety chair­man Dr As­ante Le Blanc told the JSC there was al­ways a short­age of breast and prostate can­cer drugs in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem.

She al­so claimed that while the new­er drugs have been ap­proved, they are not avail­able in the pub­lic health sys­tem and an­ti­quat­ed ver­sions were giv­en to pa­tients.

She said this meant pa­tients could on­ly ac­cess the newest ver­sions pri­vate­ly.

On Thurs­day, how­ev­er, Le Blanc apol­o­gised to the Health Min­is­ter, the min­istry and the team lead­ing the fight against can­cer. She said some of the in­for­ma­tion she ref­er­enced may have been in­com­plete.

The Health Min­istry, in a state­ment, said there was no short­age of chemother­a­py in­fu­sion phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. But yes­ter­day, Deyals­ingh said the claims have al­ready done dam­age.

“It has re­al­ly de­mor­alised peo­ple work­ing in the field of on­col­o­gy. I would tell you the mes­sages I am get­ting from on­col­o­gists re­al­ly point to that de­mor­al­i­sa­tion when she said peo­ple are get­ting an­ti­quat­ed drugs if at all, ab­solute­ly false. But the dam­age is done. But I do ac­cept her apol­o­gy,” he said.

The min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged Dr Le Blanc’s ad­mis­sion that her com­ments were guid­ed by in­com­plete in­for­ma­tion, de­spite con­sul­ta­tions with on­col­o­gy pro­fes­sion­als.