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Saturday, February 22, 2025

'Dr Parasram, a patriotic man who cares about people and animals'

by

Shastri Boodan
881 days ago
20220925

Shas­tri Boodan

Dr Roshan Paras­ram has been de­scribed as "a pa­tri­ot­ic man" with "a car­ing spir­it to­wards peo­ple and an­i­mals" since he was a child.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty of Mc Bean, Cou­va, where Dr Paras­ram grew up and spoke with his par­ents and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty about him be­ing award­ed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T (ORTT) for his ser­vice dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Sit­ting com­fort­ably in the gallery of the fam­i­ly home yes­ter­day, his moth­er, In­dra Paras­ram and fa­ther, Laxsh­miper­sad Paras­ram, 76, re­called that as a child, he loved sports, an­i­mals, and peo­ple. And as he grew old­er, he con­tin­ued to show love for peo­ple and his pa­tri­ot­ic na­ture.

Mrs Paras­ram said so strong­ly was his love for sports, she had to pull him away from play­ing crick­et with his cousins when he was in Stan­dard 5 at the Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School so he could study for the ex­ams.

She said he played crick­et for both his pri­ma­ry school and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege in Ch­agua­nas. "He was a good crick­eter, he al­so played for the doc­tors (team), he is a good all-rounder," she added. On his love for an­i­mals as a child, she said, "I even asked him at one time when he was younger if he want­ed to be a vet."

Com­ment­ing on Dr Paras­ram re­ceiv­ing the ORTT at 44, his elat­ed moth­er said, "He likes his coun­try, he was ex­posed out­side and he said, 'Nah, I go­ing back.' He has a broth­er that lives abroad, his el­der broth­er (Navin Paras­ram, the 1992 Pres­i­dent’s Medal Win­ner)."

His dad, mean­while, said he ex­pect­ed a lot from his chil­dren. "From small, they have been do­ing very well in any­thing they ven­ture in­to. He went in­to the med­ical field and, so far, he has put out his best."

 A young Roshan Parasram rides a pony.

A young Roshan Parasram rides a pony.

Mr Paras­ram said his son moved up the ranks and fur­thered his stud­ies in Lon­don where he did a post­grad­u­ate de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. "Be­cause of his hard work and dili­gence, he was af­ford­ed the post of Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO). I ex­pect that he will con­tin­ue in the same vein and put out the very best for his coun­try and his job."

 Dr Paras­ram, they said, worked at sev­er­al health cen­tres and held the post of head of the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Unit at one time.

On the com­mit­ment to his job dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Mr Paras­ram said his son worked hard. "He nev­er had a hol­i­day in two years. He re­al­ly put out every­thing he could have put out. Roshan re­al­ly ded­i­cat­ed him­self to this pan­dem­ic and tried his best in every way to make sure the death toll was as low as it could be."

Dr Paras­ram, they said, had the sup­port of his wife and chil­dren while he worked tire­less­ly and had many sleep­less nights. She said, "His phone was ring­ing all night, he hard­ly got sleep, that was a re­al­ly try­ing and chal­leng­ing time for him."

His mom said she was al­so wor­ried that he would have con­tract­ed COVID-19. "He would have to go to the hos­pi­tals to check. It was a wor­ry­ing thing to know. He want­ed to go to en­sure that the nurs­es who were there were get­ting coun­selling. That was one main thing with him, he want­ed to mo­ti­vate them to en­sure they stick to their end of the job, the nurs­es and the peo­ple who were work­ing di­rect­ly with the pa­tients. He was so con­cerned about them and he want­ed to go per­son­al­ly to talk with them, to chat with them."

Mr Paras­ram said his son get­ting the ORTT at the age of 44 was a sur­prise but it was not un­ex­pect­ed be­cause he had al­ways been an achiev­er. "When they ad­ver­tised the post, he was the most qual­i­fied per­son at that point in time, so up­on his own mer­it he got the ap­point­ment, and I think he is prob­a­bly the youngest or one of the youngest CMOs we ever had in this coun­try."

Mrs Paras­ram de­sires to see her son play a role in im­prov­ing the med­ical ser­vice for the el­der­ly and the lev­el of ser­vice at the health fa­cil­i­ties. "He is a self­less per­son, he loves this hands-on ap­proach."

The Paras­rams, who agreed to be in­ter­viewed, asked not to be pho­tographed as they try to main­tain their pri­va­cy.

Res­i­dents laud Dr Paras­ram

*In the Mc Bean com­mu­ni­ty, busi­ness­man Sham Ramkisson, the CEO of SJZ Mar­ket­ing at De­onar­ine Junc­tion, said he was proud that Dr Paras­ram was award­ed the ORTT. Ramkissoon said "He de­served the award for man­ag­ing the coun­try’s health cri­sis. As a res­i­dent of Mc Bean, I am proud that a res­i­dent of my com­mu­ni­ty could have gone on to play such an im­por­tant role in the pan­dem­ic."

*Rishi Gopaul, 49, a res­i­dent of Lakan Trace, said "The en­tire team of doc­tors, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards, Dr Hinds and the oth­ers all de­serve the awards they re­ceived. When you go to the health fa­cil­i­ties, the place is so run down and we are ac­cus­tomed to bad health care at pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions, no med­ica­tion, long wait­ing hours and the place is al­ways packed with Venezue­lans.

 "How­ev­er, Dr Parsaram and his team made the im­pos­si­ble pos­si­ble, so peo­ple could get some lev­el of de­cent treat­ment and vac­ci­na­tions dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. As a res­i­dent of the com­mu­ni­ty, I have nev­er spo­ken with or met Dr Parsaram, but I am glad that some­one from this small com­mu­ni­ty could have con­tributed in such a big way to T&T.

*An­tho­ny Ram­per­sad, a res­i­dent of George Av­enue, Mc Bean, said "Dr Paras­ram did ex­cep­tion­al­ly well with the tools he had. There is no ev­i­dence that says he did not per­form well, he was a be­hind-the-scenes man work­ing for the peo­ple, which in it­self is a sym­bol of ser­vice. His un­cle Pun­dit Paras­ram per­formed prayers or poo­ja at my home and the whole fam­i­ly are re­spectable peo­ple."

National Award


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