Sto­ries by KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Armed with stuffed toys and dis­pos­al med­ical gowns, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­bers cre­at­ed a scene out­side the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to use it for its in­tend­ed pur­pose: a chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal.

The pro­test­ers re­peat­ed Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim that had the fa­cil­i­ty been an op­er­a­tional chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal, 11 ba­bies who died at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s (PoS­GH) Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU) would not have died.

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad, and Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) Vice Chair­man Shan­ti Boodram led pro­test­ers com­pris­ing coun­cil­lors, al­der­men, and sup­port­ers in protest along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

The spec­ta­cle caught the at­ten­tion of pass­ing mo­torists as pro­test­ers held plac­ards, stat­ing “How Many More Ba­bies Must Die” and “Preg­nant Moth­ers Need Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.” Some even dis­played last week’s front pages of the T&T Guardian.

Open the hos­pi­tal now was the re­frain as pro­test­ers marched along the shoul­der of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way. They sang, “Deyals­ingh must go; Row­ley must go; PNM must go; all of them must go.” They marched to the hos­pi­tal gate, where se­cu­ri­ty kept watch.

Mayrhoo said the protest was to call for the open­ing of the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing the ba­bies’ deaths. Opened by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment in 2015, the hos­pi­tal was to cater to chil­dren’s med­ical needs but re­mained closed un­til 2020, when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tionalised it to care for COVID-19 pa­tients. As a con­se­quence, Mayrhoo said the deaths were due to the gov­ern­ment’s neg­li­gence.

Mayrhoo said, “This is a brand-new hos­pi­tal that was built—a state-of-the-art hos­pi­tal with all the equip­ment. It spe­cialis­es in chil­dren, which is why it is named the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. I am sure that what oc­curred in Port-of-Spain will not oc­cur here. That hos­pi­tal in Port-of-Spain; how old is it?”

Mayrhoo said there was no telling if more ba­bies would die in the com­ing weeks, so he sug­gest­ed that the Gov­ern­ment send moth­ers and ba­bies to Cou­va for prop­er treat­ment.

He said au­thor­i­ties saw ba­bies dy­ing but wait­ed un­til there were 11 deaths be­fore seek­ing an­swers. It meant peo­ple were not do­ing their jobs, and with Deyals­ingh and the Gov­ern­ment in charge of health­care, Mayrhoo said they need­ed to go.

UNC le­gal of­fi­cer Bri­an Baig said the PP built the NICU at Cou­va to save lives.Baig said the Gov­ern­ment should not wait for an­oth­er pan­dem­ic to use the hos­pi­tal for chil­dren’s care.

“Those could have been fu­ture lawyers, fu­ture doc­tors, or fu­ture lead­ers. I feel for those par­ents. I am hap­py that those par­ents took le­gal ac­tion. I know that with the lawyer they have, he will take them all the way. If it has to go far, let it go far. Let the min­istry know; let the min­is­ter know you can­not play with our chil­dren’s lives,” Baig said.

Boodram plead­ed with Deyals­ingh to open the chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal, ask­ing how many chil­dren must die be­fore op­er­a­tional­is­ing it. Boodram said fam­i­lies are cry­ing to­day, and chil­dren should no longer have to go through health is­sues like this again. She said Deyals­ingh was be­ing cru­el, as there are 80 chil­dren’s beds avail­able at the fa­cil­i­ty.