RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Lead­ing car­di­ol­o­gist, Dr Con­rad Mur­ray, who has deep Grena­da/Trinida­di­an roots, of­fi­cial­ly opened his DCM Med­ical In­sti­tute in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, last night.

Speak­ing at the launch, Mur­ray said his heart is in T&T and he chose here be­cause he want­ed to make that dif­fer­ence.

“When I came back to Trinidad, most of the col­leagues whom I had trained felt that I was too much of a threat to be present, when all I was will­ing to do was to col­lab­o­rate, fur­ther ed­u­cate and in­stil care for more and more. So they de­cid­ed to event­ful­ly lock the doors when they saw the cas­es I was per­form­ing ...” said Mur­ray, who grew up in T&T as a boy af­ter mi­grat­ing here with his par­ents from Grena­da, be­fore mov­ing to the US where he es­tab­lished him­self in the field of med­i­cine.

Mur­ray said he built the in­sti­tu­tion through tears, pain and strug­gle.

“It was tough. I dealt with the coun­try lock­ing its bor­ders for two years but I did not give up. I felt that I had to be re­lent­less,” he told the gath­er­ing.

The in­sti­tute was of­fi­cial­ly con­se­crat­ed by Texas-based Amer­i­can preach­er and tel­e­van­ge­list Joel Os­teen via a video pre­sen­ta­tion.

Os­teen ex­tend­ed his apolo­gies for not be­ing here in per­son but en­dorsed Mur­ray’s work in car­di­ol­o­gy and dis­closed that they are good friends.

“Be­cause of your ef­forts, T&T has be­come a cen­tre not on­ly for the treat­ment of heart dis­eases, vas­cu­lar dis­eases but al­so a world­wide hub for med­ical treat­ment and pre­ven­ta­tive med­i­cine. You have cre­at­ed a place where peo­ple from all over the world can come to be treat­ed with com­pas­sion and ex­per­tise. That’s the heart of Doc­tor Mur­ray,” Os­teen said in the video.

Mur­ray al­so said Os­teen will soon vis­it the coun­try “to cel­e­brate not on­ly with you in Trinidad but the en­tire Caribbean.”

In 2018, Mur­ray took le­gal ac­tion against the Med­ical Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MBTT) over its re­fusal to ac­cept his an­nu­al reg­is­tra­tion fees to al­low him to prac­tice med­i­cine lo­cal­ly, af­ter he re­turned from the US fol­low­ing his im­pris­on­ment over his in­volve­ment in the death of US pop icon Michael Jack­son.

Mur­ray, then 62, was con­vict­ed of in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter in Jack­son’s death in 2009 from car­diac ar­rest.

In the af­ter­math of the Jack­son case, Mur­ray had his Texas, Cal­i­for­nia and Neva­da med­ical li­cens­es sus­pend­ed. He was first reg­is­tered to prac­tice in T&T af­ter he qual­i­fied as a med­ical doc­tor and re­turned here fol­low­ing his re­lease in 2013.

Mur­ray be­gan prac­tis­ing med­i­cine at a pri­vate nurs­ing home in Ch­agua­nas. How­ev­er, the MBTT re­fused to ac­cept his an­nu­al reg­is­tra­tion fees on the grounds that he need­ed to fur­nish a cer­tifi­cate of good stand­ing. The MBTT con­tend­ed that when fees are not paid over sev­er­al years, such a cer­tifi­cate is re­quired in or­der to is­sue a li­cence to a doc­tor to prac­tice med­i­cine in ac­cor­dance with the Med­ical Board Act.

In 2018, at­tor­neys act­ing for Mur­ray sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the MBTT threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion and re­quest­ing the fees be ac­cept­ed. At­tor­neys act­ing for Mur­ray con­demned the MBTT’s pre­vi­ous con­tention that Mur­ray was not reg­is­tered to prac­tice in T&T and not­ed that the coun­cil’s March 7, 2018 list of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers cit­ed Mur­ray as a reg­is­tered med­ical doc­tor.