Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has re­ceived its high­est bud­get al­lo­ca­tion in over a decade—$8.214 bil­lion, the sec­ond-largest al­lo­ca­tion af­ter Ed­u­ca­tion in this year’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment Bud­get.

Dur­ing his maid­en Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said, “Good health is the foun­da­tion of pros­per­i­ty.”

He out­lined sev­er­al ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing amend­ments to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, ex­tend­ed health cen­tre hours in 12 com­mu­ni­ties, mod­erni­sa­tion of the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) and a Na­tion­al Health Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem with se­cure health ID.

T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art high­light­ed the pro­pos­al to leg­is­late a Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court and a No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund as par­tic­u­lar­ly in­no­v­a­tive. He said if re­alised, the court could be a turn­ing point in han­dling med­ical com­plaints in the coun­try.

“We await to see how this flesh­es out and how this will be in­te­grat­ed in­to the na­tion­al land­scape,” Stu­art said, not­ing the com­pen­sa­tion fund will pro­vide re­lief for pa­tients who may not have re­ceived op­ti­mal care in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem.

How­ev­er, Stu­art ex­pressed some dis­ap­point­ment that the Bud­get did not ad­dress manda­to­ry pa­tient-to-nurse ra­tios, the na­tion­al health ac­cred­i­ta­tion stan­dard, and the na­tion­al health in­sur­ance sys­tem.

Tan­coo al­so an­nounced sev­er­al in­fra­struc­ture and equip­ment up­grades:

Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty to fo­cus on chil­dren.

San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal to add a catheter­i­sa­tion lab.

Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block to be op­er­a­tional by March 2026.

San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal to be com­mis­sioned this fis­cal year.

“This is not prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion, Mr Speak­er, this is re­al com­ple­tion,” Tan­coo said.

A $35 mil­lion re­fur­bish­ment pro­gramme and $40 mil­lion in fa­cil­i­ty up­grades will mod­ernise wards and sys­tems, while $60 mil­lion will pro­cure crit­i­cal equip­ment, in­clud­ing CT scan­ners, X-ray units, and sur­gi­cal tow­ers, he said. To cut sur­gi­cal wait times, $20 mil­lion is ear­marked for car­diac care, $100 mil­lion for dial­y­sis and $10 mil­lion for or­thopaedic and eye surg­eries.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, den­tal ser­vices will be re­vived through new equip­ment in 37 clin­ics.

“Mr Speak­er, we will cut wait times for life-sav­ing pro­ce­dures be­cause faster care saves lives,” Tan­coo said, not­ing Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe will pro­vide de­tails in his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.