Promi­nent med­ical doc­tor Joel Teelucks­ingh has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

The ac­tion by the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) al­leged­ly stems from the pub­li­ca­tion of his week­ly “Ask The Doc­tor” col­umn in the Trinidad & To­ba­go Guardian news­pa­per on Fri­day, March 21, which was en­ti­tled ‘The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal’.

Dr Teelucks­ingh, who is a con­sul­tant in in­ter­nal med­i­cine, en­docrinol­o­gy and di­a­betes at the SWHRA, is to re­main on leave with pay pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

When con­tact­ed last night, he con­firmed he had been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and that the mat­ter was in the hands of his at­tor­neys.

Ef­forts to reach Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and SWRHA CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.

How­ev­er, in his satir­i­cal col­umn which was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed, Dr Teelucks­ingh poked fun at the “Great Un­veil­ing” cer­e­monies of­ten held by politi­cians as he wrote: “The Em­per­or has built a hos­pi­tal with no hos­pi­tal in­side!

“It’s a hos­pi­tal in the­o­ry, but not in prac­tice!

“The Em­per­or is naked!

“At those words, the last thread of the il­lu­sion un­rav­elled.

“The Em­per­or left the grand un­veil­ing in a hur­ry, his pa­rade of min­is­ters trail­ing be­hind, whis­per­ing fran­tic plans for dam­age con­trol.

“The peo­ple? They re­turned to their over­crowd­ed wards, their ex­haust­ed clin­ics and their end­less wait­ing lists.

“Be­cause they had seen this play be­fore.

“And in that mo­ment, a new thought be­gan to take root—not a whis­per, but a de­mand:

“Next time, we want more than a rib­bon. Next time, we want more than a speech.

“Next time, we want a hos­pi­tal that ac­tu­al­ly heals.”