RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

On the day that five peo­ple died and 325 more were in­fect­ed with COVID-19, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh broke pro­to­col and hugged Kevin Shade, su­per­vi­sor of the dai­ly paid staff at the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

Deyals­ingh had been speak­ing at the hos­pi­tal's reded­i­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny where he hailed health care work­ers as he­roes.

Union bat­tle songs were sung and an emo­tion­al Deyals­ingh asked for a nap­kin and wept be­fore invit­ing the au­di­ence to give a stand­ing ova­tion for all those who risked their lives car­ing for COVID-19 pa­tients.

The hos­pi­tal had been part of the par­al­lel health care sys­tem since May 2021 and was the first hos­pi­tal to be de­com­mis­sioned as a COVID fa­cil­i­ty.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the func­tion, Deyals­ingh ex­plained why he broke pro­to­col.

"You would not know the sac­ri­fices that all of us made, my­self in­clud­ed. When you see a cel­e­bra­tion of ex­cel­lence, it is a re­lease valve. With that re­lease, comes that emo­tion. You don't know what we went through 24 hours per day and to fi­nal­ly see some light on the hori­zon, fills you with emo­tion­al joy," Deyals­ingh said.

He added, "I be­came over­come with joy hav­ing been the leader of this team. I hugged Mr Shade and I have no re­grets about break­ing pro­to­col." Asked whether he was send­ing mixed mes­sages, Deyals­ingh said, "I want to fo­cus on the pos­i­tives. For that two or three sec­onds, Mr Shade de­serves every ac­co­lade that he gets."

He said he ex­pect­ed crit­i­cism to come, adding, "You have to recog­nise the ex­cel­lence of the or­di­nary health care work­er."

Deyals­ingh said half of the coun­try had de­cid­ed not to get vac­ci­nat­ed.

"So be it," he said.

First dose vac­cines, he said are con­tin­u­ing at 200 to 300 per day with over 500 boost­ers be­ing ad­min­is­tered dai­ly.