Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As death claims more of their col­leagues, sur­viv­ing Petrotrin Trin­mar re­tirees com­plained yes­ter­day that they are still be­ing de­nied the med­ical ben­e­fits they say are owed to them and are now call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene.

Speak­ing at the Clifton Hill Sports Club in Point Fortin, the re­tirees said age and fi­nan­cial hard­ship have stripped them of the abil­i­ty to protest or take le­gal ac­tion, leav­ing them with lit­tle more than hope that their pleas will be heard.

Spokesman Frankie McGuire, 71, said when he signed the terms and con­di­tions of his med­ical health plan in the 1970s, it was in­tend­ed to be a life­time ben­e­fit and was not sup­posed to end with the re­struc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny.

Since Petrotrin was closed in 2018, he said re­tirees have sent cor­re­spon­dence to var­i­ous au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion. Last year, they wrote to sev­er­al of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar, but re­ceived no re­sponse.

Com­plain­ing that they are be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly, McGuire said, “We are not ask­ing any­body for a hand­out. We con­tributed to our med­ical plan, and we have doc­u­ments from the com­pa­ny stat­ing it was med­ical for life. Since Petrotrin was dis­solved and Her­itage was formed, we have been left with­out any med­ical plan.”

He said many re­tirees had worked for decades un­der haz­ardous con­di­tions, with some suf­fer­ing se­ri­ous in­juries, in­clud­ing sev­ered limbs. McGuire him­self lost a fin­ger while on the job.

“When I wrote the Prime Min­is­ter, we had over 1,500 re­tirees. To­day, we have about 620. The rest have died. That is our sit­u­a­tion. We are not ask­ing for hand­outs—we are ask­ing for what is ours,” he said.

McGuire ap­pealed di­rect­ly to the Prime Min­is­ter to in­ter­vene.

“We would like her to reach out and de­ter­mine our present po­si­tion and al­so con­sult with our union on the sta­tus of our med­ical plan,” he said.

He added that the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) was ex­pect­ed to be cham­pi­oning their cause through the In­dus­tri­al Court, but re­tirees were told the mat­ter was not list­ed.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed, OW­TU chief ed­u­ca­tion and re­search of­fi­cer Ozzi War­wick said the re­tirees’ med­ical plan is among the mat­ters in­clud­ed in a claim filed in 2019. He said the case re­mains pend­ing as the union awaits a tri­al date. Ke­sar did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment.