CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

On the an­niver­sary of the de­c­la­ra­tion of COVID-19 as a world­wide pan­dem­ic, there are re­newed calls for a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Gov­ern­ment's han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion.

The call comes from for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Dr Tim Gopeesingh.

In a state­ment Dr Gopeesingh said, "The pan­dem­ic an­niver­sary finds me re­flect­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s own COVID-19 his­to­ry, where cit­i­zens have en­dured one of the worst man­aged re­spons­es un­der the (Dr) Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion."

“The Gov­ern­ment, with­out prop­er pol­i­cy for­ma­tion, in­dulged in re­ac­tionary, whim­si­cal, eco­nom­i­cal­ly dev­as­tat­ing lock­downs and bor­der clo­sures, re­sult­ing in thou­sands of cit­i­zens be­ing strand­ed abroad, rel­e­gat­ed to pover­ty and state­less­ness,” the for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Gopeesingh, the pub­lic health sec­tor, which he says was “al­ready on the verge of col­lapse then”, was al­so plagued by a myr­i­ad of new prob­lems.  He point­ed to cit­i­zens re­ceiv­ing in­ad­e­quate test­ing, no phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and late pro­cure­ment of vac­cines, as well as in­suf­fi­cient PPEs, ven­ti­la­tor sup­port in the ICUs, and med­ical staff at the pub­lic hos­pi­tals.

"This re­sult­ed in T&T hav­ing one of the high­est Covid-19 death rates per mil­lion pop­u­la­tion in the world, with over 4600 peo­ple dy­ing to date," Dr Gopeesingh said.

These, and what he called much more fail­ures are chron­i­cled in the Seemu­n­gal Re­port, which was com­mis­sioned by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in 2022.

Dr Gopeesingh said 19 ma­jor rec­om­men­da­tions were made by this com­mit­tee, but claimed that to date, none has been im­ple­ment­ed.

"Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and I have long called for a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.  The Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion owes the pop­u­la­tion an­swers for every sin­gle Covid-19 death in the past three years, as well as a du­ty of care for their med­ical well-be­ing for the fu­ture. At this dire stage, noth­ing else is ac­cept­able," he said.