Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC) Hen­ry Awong has con­firmed that the cor­po­ra­tion is with­out a doc­tor. Af­ter re­ceiv­ing sev­er­al calls ear­li­er this week on this is­sue Guardian Me­dia ques­tioned Awong on Fri­day morn­ing as he was about to en­ter the CT­TRC’s of­fices at Rail­way Road, Cou­va.

Awong said the con­tract of the last doc­tor ex­pired a month ago and the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment has failed to ap­point a new doc­tor.

Awong said this is most wor­ri­some since he is con­cerned that the med­ical needs of res­i­dents are not be­ing met.

He al­so ex­pressed fear about the tim­ing giv­en the spread of the coro­n­avirus out­side of this coun­try.

Awong said, “That is se­vere­ly ham­per­ing the op­er­a­tions of the CT­TRC es­pe­cial­ly at this time when the coro­n­avirus is in the air. I think it will come to T&T soon­er than lat­er be­cause of the Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion mov­ing back and forth. The main func­tion of the doc­tor is to ad­vise the coun­cil on is­sues re­gard­ing pub­lic health and with­out the doc­tor the coun­cil is with­out in­for­ma­tion on the sta­tus of pub­lic health in the re­gion and how we can take pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures to ad­dress pub­lic health is­sues.”

Awong said no doc­tor means work­ers in risky jobs in ro­dent con­trol, drain clean­ing and on cesspool pump trucks have not got­ten their an­nu­al check-up.

Awong said if the CT­TRC had the fund­ing it would have been in a po­si­tion to hire its own doc­tor. He said the CT­TRC can­not bor­row a doc­tor from an­oth­er re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion in the same man­ner as it bor­rows heavy equip­ment in times of dis­as­ter.