For­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has warned of a cam­paign of “purges” with­in the pub­lic ser­vice, fol­low­ing re­ports that Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram was sent on leave un­der con­tro­ver­sial cir­cum­stances.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has de­nied that Dr Paras­ram was forced out, telling re­porters the CMO had ap­plied for his leave, which was ap­proved in the usu­al man­ner.

“My in­for­ma­tion is that the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a cer­tain amount of leave, and he had ap­plied for the leave, and the nor­mal process—the leave was grant­ed,” Bo­doe said.

“Dr Paras­ram as Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer is in a pub­lic ser­vice po­si­tion ... he can­not be sent on leave, so from my un­der­stand­ing, the process has been dealt with from the pub­lic ser­vice with­in the re­mit of the pub­lic ser­vice.”

Re­ports sug­gest Dr Paras­ram will re­main on leave un­til Sep­tem­ber.

Bo­doe said Dr Ani­ta Laloo had been ap­point­ed to act as CMO, but said he would con­firm the de­tails.

How­ev­er, se­nior of­fi­cials fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter have paint­ed a dif­fer­ent pic­ture.

A source who asked not to be named dis­put­ed Bo­doe’s ver­sion of events, say­ing, “CMO nev­er asked to go on leave vol­un­tar­i­ly. He was forced to do so and hu­mil­i­at­ed in front of his staff.”

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, at least eight doc­tors re­port­ed­ly re­fused to act as CMO when asked, cit­ing con­cerns over how the sit­u­a­tion was han­dled. The ninth per­son, Dr Laloo, is re­port­ed­ly act­ing and con­cerns have been raised about this.

Sources with­in the min­istry said there was wide­spread un­ease.

Deyals­ingh, in a re­lease on Fri­day, warned of “ear­ly warn­ing signs” un­der the new ad­min­is­tra­tion. “The coun­try is now faced with the re­al­i­ty of how purges are car­ried out,” he said.

Deyals­ingh added, “This is how despot­ic lead­er­ship lays down its ten­ta­cles. From the 1930s to now, strong­man lead­ers pro­pel pro­fes­sion­als and pop­u­la­tions at large in­to sub­mis­sion and si­lence. His­to­ry is re­plete with ex­am­ples.”

He ref­er­enced what he de­scribed as a pub­lic at­tack on re­tired Ma­jor Gen­er­al Rod­ney Smart, CEO of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, as well as crit­i­cism di­rect­ed at Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

Deyals­ingh al­so point­ed to com­ments aimed at new­ly ap­point­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, sug­gest­ing they were be­ing warned to “be care­ful” in their de­lib­er­a­tions even be­fore bills had been de­bat­ed.

On the is­sue of Dr Paras­ram’s leave, Deyals­ingh ques­tioned whether the de­ci­sion came from the Health Min­is­ter or an­oth­er source. He al­so raised con­cerns over whether the act­ing CMO was suit­ably qual­i­fied to han­dle the role.

On Dr Paras­ram, he asked point­ed­ly: “Was this on the min­is­ter’s di­rec­tion? If not his, on whose di­rec­tion? How many per­sons were asked to act as CMO and re­fused? Was there a pe­ri­od of time when the coun­try was left ex­posed with­out a sub­stan­tive or act­ing CMO? Where did the cur­rent act­ing CMO lie in the se­nior­i­ty list of those asked to act?”

In 2021, then Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had called for the re­moval of the “failed med­ical team” of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Dr Paras­ram, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards, Dr Av­ery Hinds, and Dr Trot­man, say­ing their man­age­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic amount­ed to “state-sanc­tioned mur­der” af­ter over 600 deaths.

In a state­ment at the time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “Row­ley pre­sent­ed no plan, ad­mit­ted to a big lie about vac­cines, claimed our coun­try is bet­ter off than the coun­tries that are ac­tu­al­ly do­nat­ing vac­cines to us, and pre­sent­ed no hope to our cit­i­zens. Most dan­ger­ous­ly, he clear­ly is not go­ing to make any re­al changes that are nec­es­sary to save lives. He is keep­ing the same failed med­ical team now turned pro­pa­gan­da team of Deyals­ingh, Paras­ram, Ab­dool Richards, Hinds and Trot­man. These peo­ple have been in charge for over 15 months and led us in­to this dis­as­ter of over 600 deaths. Con­tin­u­ing with them in charge is dead­ly, and amounts to pre­med­i­tat­ed, state-sanc­tioned mur­der.”

Deyals­ingh end­ed his state­ment with a stark warn­ing, quot­ing the words of Ger­man pas­tor Mar­tin Niemöller:

“First they came for the So­cial­ists, and I did not speak out—be­cause I was not a So­cial­ist. Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did not speak out—be­cause I was not a trade union­ist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–be­cause I was not a Jew. Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

He added, “Trinidad and To­ba­go, you have been warned.”

Mul­ti­ple calls to Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Paras­ram went unan­swered.

We al­so reached out to Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, who re­it­er­at­ed:

“Con­trary to claims cir­cu­lat­ing in the pub­lic do­main, Dr Roshan Paras­ram, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, was not sent on leave. Dr Paras­ram had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a pe­ri­od of el­i­gi­ble leave, for which he du­ly ap­plied. His re­quest was processed and ap­proved in keep­ing with stan­dard pro­ce­dures.

It is im­por­tant to note that the role of Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer falls un­der the purview of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC). As such, a pub­lic of­fi­cer serv­ing in this ca­pac­i­ty can­not be placed on leave ar­bi­trar­i­ly or out­side of the le­gal frame­work set out by the PSC. As per stan­dard pro­ce­dure, an act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer has been ap­point­ed to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of op­er­a­tions.”