Sascha Wil­son

"We want we med­ical now," chant­ed Trin­mar re­tirees dur­ing a protest in front of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um build­ing in Point Fortin this morn­ing.

Com­plain­ing that they are suf­fer­ing, the re­tirees are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to en­sure that they are giv­en a prop­er med­ical plan.

Frankie Mc Guire com­plained that when the gov­ern­ment shut down Petrotrin they lost their med­ical plan.

"The same No­vem­ber month (that Petrotrin closed) we were us­ing our med­ical," he lament­ed.

Mc Guire ex­plained they wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter who re­ferred them to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklyn Khan. How­ev­er, Khan passed away and they wrote to Prime Min­ster again and he put them on to Her­itage.

Fol­low­ing this, Her­itage arranged for a med­ical plan for them un­der Tatil where the re­tirees would pay 20 per­cent of their med­ical costs while the Tatil paid 80  per­cent.

Mc Guire said the med­ical plan was then moved un­der an­oth­er in­sur­ance firm but the pre­mi­um was in­creased and some re­tirees were un­able to af­ford it.

The prob­lem they face now he said, is that the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny has re­versed the agree­ment. They are now be­ing asked to pay 80 per­cent of their med­ical costs.

The re­tirees al­so vent­ed their frus­tra­tion with OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get whom they claim is not rep­re­sent­ing them.

Mc Guire said if they get no re­sponse, they will be bring­ing out all re­tirees, even if they are on stretch­ers or wheel­chairs, to protest in front of the build­ing.

"We are the pi­o­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We work hard in the most un­safe con­di­tions and to­day we don't have we med­ical, " Mc Guire com­plained.