Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia

In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing med­ical doc­tor Joel Teelucks­ingh have for­mal­ly called on the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty to re­con­sid­er its al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against their client and drop any in­tend­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Free­dom Cham­bers, head­ed by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, there is no law­ful jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or prop­er ba­sis for a dis­ci­pli­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

They stat­ed that any in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the mat­ter would be ar­bi­trary, un­fair and high­ly ir­ra­tional. Free­dom Law al­so warned the SWRHA that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion would breach Dr Teelucks­ingh’s right to pro­tec­tion of the law.

“We are there­fore un­able to re­spond to your re­quest and here­by re­quest fur­ther and bet­ter par­tic­u­lars of the al­le­ga­tion(s) against our client. Up­on re­ceipt of same, we shall take min­is­te­r­i­al in­struc­tions and re­vert ac­cord­ing­ly.

“In the ab­sence of prop­er par­tic­u­lars, we are forced to con­clude that your vague al­le­ga­tion against our client was noth­ing more than a knee-jerk re­ac­tion that amounts to po­lit­i­cal overkill that was based on an un­nec­es­sary and overzeal­ous at­tempt to re­strict our client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion. It is dra­con­ian, dis­pro­por­tion­ate and op­pres­sive and amounts to an abuse of pow­er,” Free­dom Law at­tor­ney Sue Ann De­oso­ran wrote to SWRHA Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Dr Bri­an Ar­mour on Fri­day.

Dr Teelucks­ingh was in­struct­ed in a SWRHA let­ter to go on leave from March 21 to April 30 af­ter the au­thor­i­ty took is­sue with his Trinidad Guardian col­umn “The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal”.

The ar­ti­cle was a satir­i­cal ac­count of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the open­ing of a new hos­pi­tal. It came on the heels of the open­ing of the new Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The Spe­cial­ist Med­ical Of­fi­cer (In­ter­nal Med­i­cine) was ac­cused of breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (Con­duct) Reg­u­la­tions 2008.

He was asked to ex­plain his al­leged mis­con­duct and was in­formed of an im­pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be con­duct­ed by SWRHA Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Kevon Ger­vais. How­ev­er, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in­struct­ed the SWRHA to re­in­state Dr Teelucks­ingh and con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion while he was on the job.

“I am cer­tain that the SWRHA Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment would have been mon­i­tor­ing the stri­dent com­ments from mem­bers of the pub­lic on this mat­ter. The SWRHA would be well ad­vised to fo­cus its en­er­gy and re­sources on im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty and stan­dard of health­care that it of­fers to the pub­lic in­stead of see­ing ghosts where there are none,” the March 28 let­ter stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Free­dom, Se­nior Coun­sel’s ad­vice in­ter­pret­ed the no­tice of al­le­ga­tion sent to the in­ter­nal med­i­cine spe­cial­ist as de­fi­cient. At­tor­neys claimed that its client was not in­formed of the pre­cise na­ture of the al­le­ga­tion be­ing made against him, and as a re­sult, could not re­spond.

Free­dom gave the SWRHA two days to re­spond to its let­ter.