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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Parasram receives the ORTT: It feels a little bittersweet

by

Ambika Jagassarsingh
878 days ago
20220924
Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram reciepient of the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for Distinguished and Outstanding Service to T&T.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram reciepient of the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for Distinguished and Outstanding Service to T&T.

ANISTO ALVES

Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter brav­ing the COVID-19 storm for the last two years, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram has been ho­n­oured with this coun­try’s high­est na­tion­al award–The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT). He de­scribes it as a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment since the pan­dem­ic which has claimed more than 4,000 lives has not of­fi­cial­ly been de­clared over. Thou­sands of oth­ers, how­ev­er, were able to make it through due to the per­sis­tent and con­stant el­e­va­tion of the health care sys­tem.

"It feels a lit­tle bit­ter­sweet be­cause we are still in the grips of the pan­dem­ic, it is still with us un­for­tu­nate­ly," he said.

Paras­ram said that de­spite there still be­ing con­cerns about the virus, the end is near.  

“I think we are see­ing the end of it, even the WHO di­rec­tor gen­er­al has sig­nalled to us that the end is in sight. I think in T&T we are get­ting to a more man­age­able state.”  

De­spite com­ing to an end, how­ev­er, he said the virus served as a les­son to T&T and the en­tire world. “COVID-19 has re­al­ly taught us that the un­cer­tain­ty of a virus nev­er dis­ap­pears so we wait and see what hap­pens as it makes its way to­wards end­ing and hope­ful­ly much low­er lev­els of trans­mis­sion.”

The ORTT is award­ed to those who have pro­vid­ed dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to T&T, a task that was dili­gent­ly done by Dr Paras­ram with­in the sphere of pub­lic health.

In the cer­e­mo­ny held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day, the Pres­i­dent pre­sent­ed Paras­ram as well as oth­er mem­bers of his team with their es­teemed awards. This cer­e­mo­ny was the first nor­mal, full-length Re­pub­lic Day com­mem­o­ra­tion of cel­e­bra­tions in 2019, as events in 2020/21 were brief due to the COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the pro­file from the Pres­i­dent’s House, the CMO was laud­ed for his con­tri­bu­tions to the coun­try, which led him to re­ceive the pres­ti­gious award:  

“He (Dr Paras­ram) stew­ard­ed the na­tion through highs and lows, his un­flap­pable de­meanour and pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach pro­vid­ing much-need­ed calm amidst the COVID-19 storm. He quick­ly be­came a house­hold name as he tire­less­ly pro­vid­ed up­dates and crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, en­gag­ing the me­dia and pub­lic dai­ly.”

The CMO ex­pressed his grat­i­tude for be­ing cho­sen for the award, how­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that he could not have done it with­out the sup­port of the dili­gent doc­tors who ded­i­cat­ed their time and ef­fort to the cause.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, centre, wiith the Ministry of Health National Award reciepients from left, Prof Christine Carrington, Chaconia Medal (Gold); Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram, ORTT; Dr Michelle Trotman, Chaconia Medal (Gold); Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, Chaconia Medal (Gold); and Dr Avery Hinds, Chaconia Medal (Gold) after the National Awards Ceremony at NAPA, Port-of-Spain, last night.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, centre, wiith the Ministry of Health National Award reciepients from left, Prof Christine Carrington, Chaconia Medal (Gold); Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram, ORTT; Dr Michelle Trotman, Chaconia Medal (Gold); Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, Chaconia Medal (Gold); and Dr Avery Hinds, Chaconia Medal (Gold) after the National Awards Ceremony at NAPA, Port-of-Spain, last night.

ANISTO ALVES

“I am ho­n­oured and priv­i­leged to be cho­sen to be the re­cip­i­ent of the ORTT and re­al­ly and tru­ly, I want to thank the health care work­ers first of all for their ser­vice and dili­gence. I think none of us from the health team would re­al­ly be here with­out all the hands on deck of the 170,000 health care work­ers across the coun­try that have pro­vid­ed and con­tin­ue to pro­vide ser­vice to all of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” added Paras­ram.

Paras­ram re­it­er­at­ed that beat­ing this virus was a team ef­fort and that no one in­di­vid­ual could have done it alone.

Oth­er mem­bers of the Min­istry of Health's med­ical team who led T&T through the pan­dem­ic were al­so award­ed the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) for their ser­vice to the coun­try–   Dr Av­ery Hinds, Dr Michelle Trot­man, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards and Prof Chris­tine Car­ring­ton.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to the Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer (PMO), Dr Ab­dool-Richards who echoed Paras­ram’s sen­ti­ments re­gard­ing the medals com­mem­o­rat­ing the col­lec­tive ef­fort of all the health care work­ers.

She said that the dif­fer­ent sec­tors aid­ed im­mense­ly in the ef­forts through their sup­port.

“The team it­self re­al­ly worked to­geth­er and we are ex­treme­ly grate­ful for the sup­port of the oth­er sec­tors, for ex­am­ple, the pri­vate sec­tors, NGOs, Cham­bers of com­merce.”

 Richards al­so ex­pressed her grat­i­tude for the peo­ple of T&T and their re­as­sur­ances through­out the med­ical cri­sis.

“We are very grate­ful to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go who at dif­fi­cult times would see us in the su­per­mar­ket and pub­lic spaces and would come and of­fer words of en­cour­age­ment and kind­ness,” stat­ed Richards.

Re­cip­i­ent of the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) for ser­vices in the sphere of cul­ture and ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Prim­nath Goop­tar de­scribed the medal as a life­time achieve­ment. Goop­tar was a prin­ci­pal for more than three decades and then went on to be­come a lec­tur­er at the UWI. He was al­so heav­i­ly in­volved in Ram­leela and Phag­wa cel­e­bra­tions, as well as com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, all of which con­tributed to him re­ceiv­ing the award. He said, “Grow­ing up you see oth­ers get it, but you nev­er ex­pect it, so it was a sur­prise when I re­ceived the call ask­ing if I would ac­cept it.”

Young Man­nette: Feel­ings of ela­tion and pride

Laud­ed as a hero when he man­aged to save a doc­tor’s life while on va­ca­tion, Hum­ming­bird Medal (Bronze) for gal­lantry awardee, Mas­ter Gregg Man­nette was beam­ing and de­scribed the recog­ni­tion as a priv­i­lege.

“I got great ho­n­our and so much feel­ings of ela­tion and pride to be recog­nised for this award” he said.

Man­nette risked his life to save a doc­tor from drown­ing in To­ba­go.

Mrs Gia Gas­pard-Tay­lor was award­ed the Gold Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women. She is a found­ing mem­ber and pres­i­dent of the Net­work of Rur­al Women Pro­duc­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go, an or­gan­i­sa­tion fo­cused on the em­pow­er­ment of rur­al women to im­prove their eco­nom­ic and so­cial well-be­ing.

She de­scribed this award as a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty for her and for the work she has done over the years to help women progress. De­spite do­ing the work out of en­joy­ment and hav­ing no ex­pec­ta­tions of recog­ni­tion for it, she al­lud­ed that the award is some­what of a com­mem­o­ra­tion of all the work done. “Some­times you do feel like giv­ing up but then there are op­por­tu­ni­ties that you feel will come and when it does come you just open up and go again.”

63 peo­ple were ho­n­oured by the Gov­ern­ment and re­ceived com­mem­o­ra­tive medals for ser­vice to coun­try.

National Award


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