PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has called for the res­ig­na­tion of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) Davlin Thomas fol­low­ing his con­tentious claims that a change in ro­ta­tion prompt­ed a 60 de­crease in the mor­tal­i­ty rate of COVID-19 pa­tients and a 25 per cent de­crease in dis­charges.

In the Op­po­si­tion’s week­ly me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Sen­a­tor Wade Mark cit­ed Thomas’ man­age­r­i­al neg­li­gence as the rea­son he should leave the post.

“We in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress are call­ing for the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of Davlin Thomas, the CEO for man­age­r­i­al neg­li­gence,” said Mark.

Thomas’ state­ment has been dis­put­ed by both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion and the Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh al­so dis­tanced them­selves from the state­ment that was is­sued Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Mark, joined in the cho­rus of those ques­tion­ing the ve­rac­i­ty of the fig­ures cit­ed by the NCRHA head.

“Where is the CEO’s ev­i­dence of a re­duc­tion in mor­tal­i­ty due to a new team of doc­tors. We asked Mr Thomas, where is the ev­i­dence? Where is the proof?” asked Mark who al­so not­ed that there had been sig­nif­i­cant trans­fers of COVID-19 pa­tients out of the pub­lic health sys­tem to oth­er fa­cil­i­ties and asked if this was the back­bone of Thomas’s claim.

“This would be gross mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of med­ical da­ta and should be strong­ly re­buked, and round­ly con­demned by the coun­try and its pop­u­la­tion,” he said.

“Too many in­no­cent lives are be­ing snatched away on a dai­ly ba­sis be­cause of this dan­ger­ous, ma­nip­u­la­tion of da­ta and sta­tis­tics,” said Mark.

Al­so dur­ing the press brief­ing, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles con­tin­ued to ques­tion the de­ci­sion to place re­stric­tions on food sales giv­en the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to stop the sale of pre-pack­aged food at gro­ceries and phar­ma­cies.

He asked if there had been ev­i­dence to sug­gest that the sale of food, even from curb­side ven­dors had con­tributed to a rise in cas­es.

“Up to this day, the pop­u­la­tion does not know and can­not tell whether curb­side sales of food are big­ger trig­gers of spread than in­door din­ing, the state of New York knows that and they have de­vel­oped a pol­i­cy with re­spect to that some time ago,” said Charles.

“What is the risk fac­tors in sell­ing dou­bles if all pro­to­cols are ob­served. What about the da­ta?” he asked.

Charles said the gov­ern­ment need­ed to prop­er­ly con­firm when the herd im­mu­ni­ty would be achieved if they sought to stop the spread of the virus in the coun­try.