Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health Dr Rishad Seecha­ran says the gov­ern­ment has not yet made a de­ci­sion whether to con­tin­ue or dis­con­tin­ue the use of Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in the pub­lic health sys­tem.

He added that, for now, the pro­gramme re­mains in place.

Guardian Me­dia made re­peat­ed at­tempts to ob­tain the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the mat­ter, but re­ceived no re­sponse.

Calls and mes­sages sent to Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe over sev­er­al weeks went unan­swered, while ques­tions sub­mit­ted to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so elicit­ed no re­ply.

The Unit­ed States, a ma­jor al­ly of this coun­try, has been pres­sur­ing coun­tries to end this pro­gramme with Cu­ba.

In March, Ja­maica ter­mi­nat­ed its 50-year agree­ment with Cu­ba.

This fol­lowed an ag­gres­sive stance tak­en by US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, char­ac­ter­is­ing the pro­gramme not as hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid, but as a state-spon­sored hu­man traf­fick­ing and forced labour scheme.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia briefly out­side of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Seecha­ran said, “No de­ci­sion has been made as yet. And I’ll re­fer all de­fin­i­tive com­ments to the line min­is­ter, Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe.”

Asked if the mat­ter was still be­fore Cab­i­net, Seecha­ran said he could not say.

Dur­ing the Shields of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit on March 7, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said the is­sue was still be­ing de­lib­er­at­ed by Cab­i­net.

Mean­while in To­ba­go, Sec­re­tary of Health Dr Faith Breb­nor said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is still wait­ing on ad­vice from cen­tral gov­ern­ment on the mat­ter.

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty has not got­ten any word of a shift in pol­i­cy as it re­lates to the use or the em­ploy­ment or the util­i­sa­tion of the tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty of Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als,” Dr Breb­nor said in a video she post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

She added, “We will con­tin­ue func­tion­ing as we’ve been func­tion­ing over the last cou­ple of years un­less a na­tion­al pol­i­cy is high­light­ed and pre­sent­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly or the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.”

Dr Breb­nor said it is al­so im­por­tant to note that To­ba­go rou­tine­ly re­cruits health pro­fes­sion­als from all over the world.

“They sim­ply need­ed to be able to legal­ly work in Trinidad and To­ba­go once they are re­cruit­ed, and we will con­tin­ue do­ing that. And that, of course, in­cludes med­ical pro­fes­sion­als from Cu­ba as long as they are legal­ly al­lowed to be em­ployed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”