One of the pluses in the 2022/23 Budget presentation delivered by Finance Minister Colm Imbert was his fulfilment of the promise made by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to reward members of the health sector for their efforts to the country during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two and a half years or so.
Minister Imbert has set aside some $210 million for that process, although he has not yet indicated how the money will be divided amongst the 20,000-plus workers in the sector.
This, of course, will be a continuation of the process started by the National Awards Committee, who bestowed honours to Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram and members of his main team during last Saturday’s Republic Day Awards Ceremony.
Dr Parasram, who became popular for his stoic and calm presence at COVID-19 media briefings despite all the pandemic chaos that swirled during the period, was undoubtedly one of the more deserving awardees on that evening.
When one considers that having been going along his business with relatively few ripples in the health sector before 2020, he was suddenly thrust into commandeering a national response to one of the deadliest pandemics in history, CMO Parasram was certainly able to manage the limited resources this country had for the battle, both financial and physical, quite admirably.
Indeed, recognising that even the United States was brought to its knees by the disease, to a point where medical facilities there were bursting at their seams and could not even accommodate victims’ bodies, citizens need to tip their hats to what Dr Parasram and his team were able to do.
T&T experienced the peak of the pandemic towards the end of last year into February of this year, when daily cases averaged near 1,200 and bed spaces to treat infected patients were at a bare minimum. At no time, however, was our system overwhelmed and of course, we have now arrived at a place of relative calm to be able to return to some sort of normalcy—a Herculean achievement for a system often battered for non-performance by citizens.
Still, over 4,000 citizens lost their lives to COVID-19, a statistic that Dr Parasram admitted has made his team’s recognition bittersweet. The continued low vaccination and booster rates must also bring some level of disheartenment to them, since it means somewhere along the line, some of the hard work they put into educating citizens did not necessarily result in the endgame they sought.
Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nurses Association president Idi Stuart has meanwhile added to the conversation by pointing out that the Government has made promises before that it has failed to keep, which is to say he will not celebrate until his members collect their rewards. But he has also thrown something else in the mix, asking that the Government also spread the love further by also bringing other areas of negotiations with nurses to a close as well.
From the forecasts of Finance Minister Colm Imbert, it may be impossible for the Government to extend itself past the expenditure it will face after negotiation with the unions representing public sector workers are over. But for now, this newspaper is happy those health workers who put their lives at stake to save others are receiving small tokens of T&T appreciation.