The Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety chair­man has apol­o­gised to the Min­istry of Health.

The apol­o­gy came hours af­ter the min­istry and the NWRHA hit back at com­ments made by Dr As­ante Le Blanc be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) of the Par­lia­ment on So­cial Ser­vices and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion on Wednes­day.

Le Blanc told the JSC there was al­ways a short­age of breast and prostate can­cer drugs in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. She al­so claimed 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.

In a state­ment to the me­dia yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the min­istry said it wished, “to place on record that on­col­o­gy drugs are avail­able in Trinidad and To­ba­go and fur­ther ad­vis­es that there is no short­age of chemother­a­py in­fu­sion phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, in­clu­sive of those used for breast and prostate can­cer, as al­leged”.

It added, “While the min­istry takes notes of short­ages of chemother­a­py drugs in oth­er coun­tries, Trinidad and To­ba­go is not ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any short­ages at this time.”

Re­fer­ring specif­i­cal­ly to Le Blanc, the min­istry said, “The Drug Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (DAC) is re­spon­si­ble for the reg­is­tra­tion of all drugs com­ing in­to the coun­try, of which Dr Le Blanc is a sit­ting mem­ber. Mem­bers of the DAC are privy to in­for­ma­tion in this re­gard.”

The NWRHA al­so re­in­forced its com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing the high­est stan­dards of can­cer care.

In a state­ment, it quot­ed Dr Kel­lie Al­leyne-Mike, med­ical di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Can­cer Care Cen­tre, who said, “T&T has a ro­bust sys­tem in place to pro­vide (World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion) WHO rec­om­mend­ed es­sen­tial drugs. The NWRHA added that sug­gest­ing pa­tients are giv­en an­ti­quat­ed drugs is mis­lead­ing.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Le Blanc apol­o­gised, say­ing, “Re­gret­tably, cer­tain as­pects of my re­marks may have been mis­con­strued as an at­tack.

Le Blanc point­ed out, “Up­on fur­ther re­flec­tion and sub­se­quent con­sul­ta­tions with on­col­o­gy pro­fes­sion­als, I re­alised that some of the in­for­ma­tion I ref­er­enced may have been in­com­plete. I ac­knowl­edge this over­sight and ex­press my gen­uine re­morse for any un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences that may have arisen as a re­sult.”

The doc­tor added, “I ex­tend my heart­felt apolo­gies to the min­is­ter and the en­tire team lead­ing the fight against can­cer in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It was nev­er my in­ten­tion to cause harm or dis­cord, and I sin­cere­ly re­gret any dis­tress or in­con­ve­nience that my state­ments may have caused.”