An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­turn­ing to pub­lic health lead­er­ship af­ter near­ly three decades, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh has been ap­point­ed chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA), vow­ing to ad­dress long-stand­ing sys­temic is­sues with­in the RHA. 

Speak­ing to Guardian me­dia fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment yes­ter­day by Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Gopeesingh ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue serv­ing T&T af­ter a ca­reer in pol­i­tics dat­ing back to 1992. 

“Health and ed­u­ca­tion have al­ways been my cor­ner­stones,” he said. “It’s an ho­n­our to once again sup­port the health sec­tor, along­side the Prime Min­is­ter and par­ty lead­er­ship I’ve been proud to serve with since the 1990s.” 

Gopeesingh said the NCRHA was now over­seen by a nine-mem­ber board, in­clud­ing med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, a le­gal ex­pert, and union rep­re­sen­ta­tion.  

 He not­ed that “Nurse Leza­ma, a se­nior fig­ure in the nurs­ing com­mu­ni­ty”, was named to the new lead­er­ship team. Guardian Me­dia tried sev­er­al times to con­tact Dr Bo­doe to con­firm the names of the oth­er board mem­ber, but we were un­suc­cess­ful.

The board is now re­spon­si­ble for ma­jor fa­cil­i­ties in­clud­ing Mount Hope Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal, Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, and sev­er­al re­gion­al health cen­tres. 

“It’s a full-cir­cle mo­ment,” the Gopeesingh said. “In 1997, un­der Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, I chaired the North West Re­gion­al Au­thor­i­ty. Now, 28 years lat­er, I’m back bring­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence gained from work­ing in over 18 hos­pi­tals across Cana­da, the UK, the US, Colom­bia, and more,” the chair­man stat­ed. 

Among Gopeesingh’s top pri­or­i­ties are hu­man re­source man­age­ment, re­duc­ing the sur­gi­cal back­log, and im­prov­ing pa­tient sat­is­fac­tion.  

He em­pha­sised the need for an up­dat­ed ap­praisal of staff dis­tri­b­u­tion, sup­ply chain ef­fi­cien­cy, and func­tion­al­i­ty of bio­med­ical equip­ment across fa­cil­i­ties. 

“We’re in­her­it­ing a com­plex or­gan­i­sa­tion. My first step will be meet­ing with the CEO to un­der­stand the HR chal­lenges, equip­ment needs, pro­cure­ment is­sues, and bud­getary con­straints.” 

He ac­knowl­edged the size and scope of the task ahead, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the $1.3 bil­lion bud­get al­lo­ca­tion to the NCRHA, most of which goes to­ward salaries and per­son­nel costs. He called for cost-ef­fec­tive pro­cure­ment and bet­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion with sup­pli­ers to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of care. 

The chair­man al­so em­pha­sised team­work with the Min­istry of Health and oth­er RHAs.  

He cit­ed strong re­la­tion­ships with Health Min­is­ter Dr Bo­doe and oth­er RHA chair­men who have been ap­point­ed over the past month. 

“We’ve known each oth­er for decades. We share ideas, pro­grammes, and pol­i­cy ap­proach­es to en­sure con­sis­tent ser­vice de­liv­ery across Trinidad and even in To­ba­go,” he said.

Gopeesingh reaf­firmed a fo­cus on pri­ma­ry health­care, pre­ven­tive care, and re­duc­ing wait­ing times at clin­ics and emer­gency de­part­ments. 

“The mis­sion is clear. We want to en­sure eq­ui­table, high-qual­i­ty care that reach­es every cit­i­zen. The work is vast, but with dili­gence and smart team­work, it’s achiev­able.” 

The board is ex­pect­ed to hold its first for­mal meet­ing next week. 

Pathol­o­gist Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley was giv­en his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment last week­end to head the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.