Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has come out in de­fence of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign­ty fol­low­ing the re­cent threat of US visa re­stric­tions an­nounced by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion against gov­ern­ments util­is­ing Cu­ba’s over­seas med­ical mis­sions. The pro­gramme, which has been vi­tal to health­care sys­tems across the re­gion for decades, has been de­scribed in a re­port by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion as con­sti­tut­ing “forced labour” and a form of “hu­man traf­fick­ing”.

How­ev­er, while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the cer­e­mo­ny to mark the prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion of the $1.3 bil­lion Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block yes­ter­day, Row­ley took aim at the Trump pol­i­cy and reaf­firmed this coun­try’s re­la­tion with Cu­ba. 

“We re­ly heav­i­ly on health­care spe­cial­ists whom we have ob­tained from In­dia, the Philip­pines, and main­ly from Cu­ba over the decades.

“Out of the blue we’re be­ing called hu­man traf­fick­ers be­cause we hire tech­ni­cal peo­ple who we pay top dol­lars equal to lo­cal rates but we’re now be­ing ac­cused of tak­ing part in the pro­gramme where peo­ple are be­ing ex­ploit­ed. That is some­one’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion,” Row­ley said of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion pol­i­cy.

Dr Row­ley said he was will­ing to sur­ren­der fur­ther trips to the US in an ef­fort to en­sure T&T’s po­si­tion is not tak­en light­ly.

“There are lo­cal peo­ple here en­cour­ag­ing them to take away our US visas. I came back from Cal­i­for­nia and if I nev­er go back there again in my life, I will en­sure that the sov­er­eign­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is known to its peo­ple and re­spect­ed by all.”

Last month, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio ar­tic­u­lat­ed the re­stric­tive pol­i­cy on Cu­ba. 

“The Unit­ed States is ex­pand­ing its Cu­ba-re­lat­ed visa re­stric­tion pol­i­cy, and the State De­part­ment has tak­en steps to re­strict visa is­suance to Cuban and com­plic­it third-coun­try gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and in­di­vid­u­als re­spon­si­ble for Cu­ba’s ex­ploita­tive labour ex­port pro­gramme,” Ru­bio said, adding that the US will pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty for the Cuban regime for op­press­ing its peo­ple and those who prof­it from forced labour. 

On Sun­day, US of­fi­cials and Cari­com For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters met to dis­cuss the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion pol­i­cy. 

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that the dis­cus­sions were cor­dial and fur­ther talks with oth­er of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Ru­bio, are set to be sched­uled. “Yes­ter­day evening’s meet­ing with US Spe­cial En­voy Mauri­cio Claver-Carone went ex­treme­ly well. His di­a­logue with me and oth­er For­eign Min­is­ters of COF­COR last­ed about one and a half hours and was con­duct­ed in a re­laxed, en­gag­ing, and pro­duc­tive spir­it. The Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of Cari­com and one as­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al were al­so present with us. The dis­cus­sions were wide-rang­ing, with some spe­cif­ic fo­cus on the cur­rent US poli­cies on Cu­ba, and the is­sues of mi­gra­tion, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, and Haiti. This was de­signed as an ini­tial in­ter­face, and more sub­stan­tive ex­changes are an­tic­i­pat­ed in the near fu­ture with the Spe­cial En­voy, Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, and oth­er key mem­bers of the cur­rent US ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Row­ley lauds

health­care sys­tem

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley re­flect­ed on the state of the coun­try’s health­care sys­tem dur­ing the yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ny, ac­knowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges and tri­umphs in re­form­ing the sec­tor. He re­count­ed how the hos­pi­tal, which will be­gin its in­take of pa­tients in Ju­ly, was a pre- pan­dem­ic vi­sion.

“As I read that re­port some­time be­fore June, it fright­ened me that some­time in my tenure the Cen­tral Block could be­come a dis­as­ter zone be­cause that en­gi­neer­ing study in 2009 in­di­cat­ed quite clear­ly that the Cen­tral Block in the city of Port-of-Spain was en­gi­neer­ing­ly un­sound, mean­ing it had come to the end of its use­ful life. In June of 2017, hav­ing tak­en the is­sue to cab­i­net, the cab­i­net agreed then, what­ev­er cir­cum­stances we were fac­ing, we must ad­dress this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter.”

He ex­plained that a mag­ni­tude 6.9 earth­quake back in 2018 even­tu­al­ly jolt­ed Gov­ern­ment in­to ac­tion.

Dr Row­ley as­sert­ed that through­out his tenure, ef­forts had been made to pri­ori­tise health­care with the con­struc­tion of new fa­cil­i­ties in both Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Through­out my ca­reer, I’ve begged my col­leagues and my fel­low cit­i­zens, don’t sell this coun­try short. I know there is a lot to be done, I know we fail from point to point and time to time but in this na­tion, there is so much we can be proud of, we must ac­knowl­edge that it has been good in many ar­eas.”

Young ad­vo­cates

for main­te­nance

Prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young called for a re­newed na­tion­al fo­cus on main­te­nance dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny. He em­pha­sised that while the state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty marked a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment in health­care in­fra­struc­ture, its long-term suc­cess hinged on sus­tained care and prop­er main­te­nance.

Young said ef­forts must be made to pre­serve the 540-bed fa­cil­i­ty.

“Too of­ten in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we get car­ried away with the new build and new con­tract and new feel and we don’t main­tain things prop­er­ly, so ma­jor Blake and your team and the NWRHA, we the cit­i­zens will be look­ing at you very very care­ful­ly,” Young said.

Mean­while, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh not­ed that once the Cen­tral Block is out­fit­ted, sev­er­al health­care ser­vices will re­turn to the fa­cil­i­ty. He al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of in­te­grat­ing teach­ing in­to the in­sti­tu­tion.

“This hos­pi­tal should be­come, will be­come and is be­com­ing the pre­mier teach­ing fa­cil­i­ty in the Caribbean. Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal has a rich his­to­ry of ex­cel­lence in teach­ing,” Deyals­ingh said.