DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds is ready to as­sist the Min­istry of Health in en­sur­ing the safe­ty of pa­tients and staff at the na­tion’s hos­pi­tals.

The as­sur­ance was giv­en by Hinds yes­ter­day, eight days af­ter a mass shoot­ing that start­ed in Bel­mont and end­ed on the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH) com­pound, re­sult­ing in the deaths of four peo­ple, two of them at the hos­pi­tal site, and the wound­ing of eight oth­ers.

Hinds told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day that he was aware se­cu­ri­ty had been beefed up at the PoS­GH fol­low­ing the June 2 killings of Kevin King, 32; Ab­dul Williams, 31; Jonathon Ar­joon, 28; and Jay­den Reyes, 21, whose fu­ner­al was yes­ter­day.

The shoot­ings shook staff at the PoS­GH, prompt­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art to call for tighter se­cu­ri­ty at all hos­pi­tals.

Hinds yes­ter­day said he was cog­nizant of the trau­ma these in­ci­dents cause on staff and pledged to of­fer as­sis­tance through his of­fice.

“Their con­cerns and their fears are not with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and I am aware and would sup­port ef­forts to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty there­in,” he said.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view last week, Stu­art had al­so called for a haz­ardous al­lowance for med­ical staff.

“We need to find ways that staff and their fam­i­lies will be com­fort­ed in case some­thing un­to­ward hap­pens to them,” Stu­art said.

“Far too many nurs­es have been in­jured in line of du­ty, and far too many nurs­es’ lives have been threat­ened by these very same gang mem­bers. Far too many nurs­es have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed.”

It is not yet clear if this re­quest is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.