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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Police association head wants medical insurance for officers

by

Jesse Ramdeo
1163 days ago
20220106
Police Social and Welfare Association president Inspector Gideon Dickson.

Police Social and Welfare Association president Inspector Gideon Dickson.

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A re­cent in­crease in the num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers suc­cumb­ing to COVID-19 has prompt­ed the Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion to re­new calls for the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide med­ical in­sur­ance for po­lice of­fi­cers.

In­spec­tor Gideon Dixon said the loss of 30 of­fi­cers to date has rat­tled the ser­vice. Ac­cord­ing to him, the Gov­ern­ment should take a dif­fer­ent ap­proach to bol­ster of­fi­cers con­fi­dence in the COVID-19 vac­cines.

Ac­cord­ing to him, swift ac­tion is need­ed to mit­i­gate the loss of life.

“The State must al­so stand li­a­bil­i­ty if per­sons have ad­verse ef­fect as it re­lates to COVID vac­ci­na­tion. We want to see that take place in a mean­ing­ful way. Med­ical in­sur­ance could as­sist in terms of per­sons re­mov­ing that bar­ri­er, that block­ade, that hes­i­ta­tion from want­i­ng to be vac­ci­nat­ed.”

Dixon said the as­so­ci­a­tion will be tak­ing its own ac­tion to try and pre­vent more of­fi­cers from con­tract­ing and dy­ing from COVID-19.

“ We are do­ing a sur­vey right now which will be com­ing to an end at 6 pm on the 7th (to­day). When we ex­trap­o­late the da­ta it will as­sist us in a strate­gic ap­proach go­ing for­ward, so any time from the 8th go­ing for­ward we are go­ing to put to­geth­er a task force and work along­side the ad­min­is­tra­tion to see if we could ad­dress the wel­fare con­cerns of po­lice of­fi­cers.”

The Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent al­so con­tend­ed that a bet­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment for of­fi­cers is need­ed.

“Just like the doc­tors and nurs­es have their PPE 24 hours around the clock we need to have those, and while the sup­ply chain may have been im­pact­ed there is suf­fi­cient to give.”


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