Pub­lic hos­pi­tals in Trinidad and To­ba­go have re­ceived some 245 pieces of med­ical equip­ment for COVID-19 pa­tients from Japan, worth just over US$1 mil­lion, which has helped them pro­vide qual­i­ty care over the course of the pan­dem­ic to such pa­tients.

The equip­ment was do­nat­ed to this coun­try un­der the frame­work of the Project for En­hanc­ing the Health­care Sys­tem through the Pro­vi­sion of Med­ical Equip­ment, with the fi­nal ship­ment of equip­ment re­ceived in June 2022.

The do­na­tion from the Gov­ern­ment of Japan, which was man­aged by the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice for Project Ser­vices (UN­OPS), com­prised 100 elec­tri­cal suc­tion pumps, 30 in­ten­sive care hos­pi­tal beds, 28 ICU pa­tient mon­i­tors, 25 in­fu­sion pumps (sy­ringe), 22 ul­tra­sound portable scan­ning sys­tems, 15 hos­pi­tal stretch­ers, 15 in­fu­sion pumps (vol­u­met­ric), and 10 ven­ti­la­tor sys­tems.

A spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny was held to com­mem­o­rate the hand­ing over of the fi­nal tranche of equip­ment and the project’s com­ple­tion.  At­ten­dees in­clud­ed Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go; His Ex­cel­len­cy Ken­taro Ue­su­gi, Par­lia­men­tary Vice-Min­is­ter for For­eign Af­fairs of Japan; His Ex­cel­len­cy Yu­ta­ka Mat­sub­ara, Am­bas­sador of Japan to Trinidad & To­ba­go; Mr. Den­nis Zu­lu, Act­ing UN Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor; and Mr. Ale­jan­dro Rossi, Di­rec­tor of the UN­OPS Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice for Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma and the Eng­lish & Dutch Speak­ing Caribbean.

The par­ties re­newed their com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue work­ing for the health of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“On be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and more specif­i­cal­ly the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, I am ex­treme­ly pleased to re­ceive this life­sav­ing equip­ment from the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Japan, fa­cil­i­tat­ed through UN­OPS,” For­eign Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne told those at the han­dover cer­e­mo­ny.

“This med­ical equip­ment will go a long way in pro­vid­ing sig­nif­i­cant sup­port to doc­tors, nurs­es and pa­tients in our COVID-19 In­ten­sive Care and High De­pen­den­cy Units,” the For­eign Min­is­ter added.

“It is a great ho­n­our for me to rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment of Japan at this han­dover cer­e­mo­ny. The Gov­ern­ment of Japan takes great plea­sure in the suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion of this project, which re­sponds to the crit­i­cal needs iden­ti­fied by the Min­istry of Health. I trust that the equip­ment will be used ap­pro­pri­ate­ly to at­tend to those who are in need,” stat­ed Mr. Ue­su­gi Ken­taro, Par­lia­men­tary Vice-Min­is­ter for For­eign Af­fairs of Japan.

He added: “With this han­dover, al­most all of the equip­ment to be dis­trib­uted un­der this project has been de­liv­ered to Trinidad and To­ba­go. I would like to ex­press my heart­felt ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the ef­forts made by the UN­OPS and Min­istry of Health of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In to­tal, the Gov­ern­ment of Japan con­tributed US$4.8 mil­lion to­wards the project to en­hance the health­care sys­tems in Be­lize, Guyana, Suri­name and Trinidad and To­ba­go. The agree­ment was signed in March 2021, and the to­tal bud­get for Trinidad and To­ba­go was US$1,022,221 for the ben­e­fit of more than 23,000 peo­ple.

The first set of equip­ment ar­rived in Trinidad and To­ba­go in Jan­u­ary 2022, less than 10 months af­ter the agree­ment was signed, which was for­tu­itous giv­en the glob­al sup­ply chain cri­sis caused by the pan­dem­ic. All do­nat­ed equip­ment in­clud­ed train­ing for end users.

Di­rec­tor of the UN­OPS Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice for the Eng­lish & Dutch Caribbean, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Pana­ma, Ale­jan­dro Rossi, not­ed the project was car­ried out with the high­est gov­er­nance stan­dards.

“This project has been man­aged by UN­OPS in a com­pre­hen­sive man­ner, safe­guard­ing the pro­cure­ment and de­liv­ery process while strict­ly ad­her­ing to the re­quire­ments of the health au­thor­i­ties of Trinidad and To­ba­go as well as of each of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­tries; hence en­sur­ing the high­est qual­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and per­for­mance of the eco­nom­ic re­sources pro­vid­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Japan, to leave no one be­hind, in full align­ment with the prin­ci­ples of fair pub­lic man­age­ment,” the UN­OPS se­nior of­fi­cial ex­plained.

“Ob­tain­ing high­ly com­pet­i­tive prices while meet­ing the needs of each coun­try, UN­OPS achieved over­all 13% sav­ings in the pro­cure­ment process­es for Trinidad and To­ba­go, com­pared to the ini­tial­ly es­ti­mat­ed equip­ment prices,” Mr Rossi re­port­ed.  “Con­se­quent­ly, UN­OPS was able to pur­chase ad­di­tion­al pieces of med­ical equip­ment, which re­sult­ed in ex­pand­ing the scope of the project.”

The do­nat­ed equip­ment will ben­e­fit pa­tients in the hos­pi­tals across all five Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ben­e­fi­cia­ry hos­pi­tals in­clude:

●   St James Med­ical Com­plex in Port of Spain

●   Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in San Juan

●   Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in Cou­va

●   Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal in Pointe-A-Pierre

●   Area Hos­pi­tal Point Fortin in Point Fortin

●   Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Sig­nal Hill

●   San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal in San­gre Grande

●   Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal in El Do­ra­do

●   Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal in Point Fortin