Loyse Vin­cent

Res­i­dents of Rox­bor­ough and en­vi­rons will soon have ac­cess to a state-of-the-art full-ser­vice hos­pi­tal. The fa­cil­i­ty was com­mis­sioned yes­ter­day and ac­cord­ing to Sec­re­tary for Health Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment this $80 mil­lion dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty is the first of its kind in the coun­try. How­ev­er, res­i­dents in the area be­lieve that “good for­tune” on­ly came to To­ba­go East af­ter the res­i­dents vot­ed against the PNM.

Sec­re­tary for Health Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said once op­er­a­tionalised the fa­cil­i­ty will of­fer a num­ber of ser­vices.

“Twen­ty-four-hour Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency Ser­vices, spe­cial­ists clin­ics in­clud­ing ob­stet­rics gy­nae­col­o­gy gen­er­al surgery, pae­di­atrics and in­ter­nal med­i­cine, men­tal health, re­nal med­i­cine, der­ma­tol­ogy, rheuma­tol­ogy and car­di­ol­o­gy.”

The Health Sec­re­tary went on to say the fa­cil­i­ty would al­so of­fer Hy­per­bar­ic, ICU, Dial­y­sis Lab­o­ra­to­ry and X-Ray ser­vices.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who was at the com­mis­sion­ing said the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal is on­ly one five oth­er mod­ern health­care fa­cil­i­ties built through­out the coun­try as the ad­min­is­tra­tion took a pol­i­cy to make ed­u­ca­tion, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and health­care a pri­or­i­ty. He said the coun­try was for­tu­nate to have “health­care in­fra­struc­ture” at the on­set of the pan­dem­ic.

Dr Row­ley said the coun­try was able to cre­ate a “par­al­lel health­care sys­tem” which as­sist­ed in the man­age­ment of COVID-19.

“We did have the phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture that al­lowed us to run this par­al­lel sys­tem and Cou­va for those who got ill and need­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tion af­ter hav­ing test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.”

He said the gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to use oth­er fa­cil­i­ties if the need arose and the gov­ern­ment as­sumed a lot of debt to fund the lock­down, which “pre­vent­ed the col­lapse of the econ­o­my and civ­il un­rest.”

The Prime Min­is­ter did, how­ev­er, chas­tise a group of peo­ple who gath­ered in large num­bers at No Man’s Land in To­ba­go last week­end, who he said was “will­ing to risk it all.”

“I am wait­ing to see the out­come of the fol­ly of No Man’s Land in To­ba­go last week­end when there were peo­ple who be­lieved that the laws and the reg­u­la­tions do not ap­ply to them and COVID means noth­ing to them and they are pre­pared to risk all that we have in­vest­ed all that we have done for a mo­ment of fun and frol­ic.”

Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis said that peo­ple could no longer ar­gue that To­ba­go East was un­der­de­vel­oped.

“I want to sug­gest that the rate of de­vel­op­ment that we have seen in To­ba­go East over the last five years is be­yond de­vel­op­ment in any part of the coun­try.”

He said that a PNM in Trinidad and a PNM Ad­min­is­tra­tion in To­ba­go “has af­ford­ed the kind of de­vel­op­ment that has nev­er been seen in the his­to­ry of To­ba­go.”

Just a stone throw away from the fa­cil­i­ty a num­ber of res­i­dents sat at the en­trance of a small shop ob­serv­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. One of the res­i­dents, who gave his name as Mr Tay­lor, said he was not im­pressed.

“Nine­teen years in pow­er is on­ly af­ter we vote for Wat­son PNM know To­ba­go East need up­lift­ment? They have a hos­pi­tal in Sig­nal Hill they cant main­tain they build a next one to turn a white ele­phant!”

With­in re­cent time Rox­bor­ough re­ceived a new Po­lice Sta­tion, a new Fire Sta­tion, an Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex and the Char­lot­teville Mi­ni En­ter­prise Fa­cil­i­ty was al­so re­cent­ly com­plet­ed. Chief Sec­re­tary Den­nis said this would amount to over “a quar­ter bil­lion dol­lars” in­vest­ed in the de­vel­op­ment of the area.

The Belle Gar­den East/Rox­bor­ough/De­laford seat is cur­rent­ly held by Wat­son Duke, while Far­ley C. Au­gus­tine holds the Par­latu­vi­er/L’ Anse Four­mi/Spey­side, the Good­wood/Belle Gar­den seat cur­rent­ly held by the PNM’s Hay­den Spencer was whisked away from the PDP’s Dr Faith B Yis­rael by a slim mar­gin of on­ly three votes.