RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says the Gov­ern­ment has to re­open ten­ders for a car­diac catheter­i­za­tion lab at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, in ac­cor­dance with the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

He was re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism from UNC can­di­date for Oropouche West, Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to es­tab­lish the much-need­ed lab, de­spite ten­ders be­ing is­sued as far back as 2015.

“I have said 100 times that Vamed and the Aus­tri­an gov­ern­ment was a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment that changed the way the project was han­dled, so we have to go out for a new ten­der un­der the OPR law. I have to fol­low the law,” Deyals­ingh said.

Speak­ing dur­ing a UNC meet­ing in Pe­nal on Mon­day, Dr Bo­doe, a gy­nae­col­o­gist and for­mer chair­man of the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), ac­cused Deyals­ingh of aban­don­ing crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture projects—chief among them, the car­diac catheter­i­za­tion lab at SFGH.

“In 2014, a space was iden­ti­fied for a cath lab, and in 2015, ten­ders were sent out. Be­tween 2015 to 2025—no cath lab from Deyals­ingh,” Dr Bo­doe said. “But they give you a car park in­stead.”

Dr Bo­doe said that if elect­ed, a UNC gov­ern­ment would ful­ly op­er­a­tionalise the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal. He al­so pledged to re­vamp the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) to in­clude new­er med­ica­tions for di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion, hire over 500 un­em­ployed doc­tors, re­open health cen­tres for ex­tend­ed hours and week­ends, and fix the chron­ic short­ages of med­ica­tion and med­ical sup­plies in pub­lic hos­pi­tals.

Con­demn­ing the out­sourc­ing of med­ical waste dis­pos­al, he said: “In­stead of con­tract­ing out the dis­pos­al of med­ical waste to friends and fi­nanciers at a month­ly cost of hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, we will re­pair and, if nec­es­sary, up­grade the in-house in­cin­er­a­tion equip­ment at the SWRHA.”

Dr Bo­doe al­so ad­dressed long wait­ing times for surg­eries and the dead­ly hos­pi­tal-ac­quired in­fec­tions that have plagued neona­tal units.

“No longer will the el­der­ly go blind while wait­ing for their cataract surgery. No longer will heart pa­tients die wait­ing for an­giograms, stents, or by­pass surgery.”

He vowed that a UNC gov­ern­ment would in­tro­duce guar­an­teed max­i­mum wait­ing times for clin­ic ap­point­ments, di­ag­nos­tic tests, and sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures.

Among the most ur­gent re­forms, he said, would be ad­dress­ing the poor state of neona­tal care. Re­fer­ring to the April 2024 deaths of nine new­borns from in­fec­tions at the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Bo­doe said the UNC would con­duct a full re­view of all Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Units (NICUs) across the coun­try.

“You will no longer have to wor­ry that your new­born ba­by might die from an in­fec­tion be­cause there is not enough hand sani­tis­er avail­able for doc­tors and nurs­es to wash their hands,” he said. “The tragedy of nine deaths in sev­en days ought nev­er to hap­pen again.”

In 2024, it was re­vealed that 19 ba­bies died in the NICU at the North-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA).