There are mo­ments in life that re­veal who we re­al­ly are—and who we are not.

Last week, I was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave from my job as a med­ical doc­tor at a pub­lic hos­pi­tal. Not for neg­li­gence. Not for mal­prac­tice. But for some­thing far more dan­ger­ous in to­day’s cli­mate—writ­ing.

“The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal” wasn’t defam­a­to­ry. It wasn’t po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned. And yet, for dar­ing to hold a mir­ror to so­ci­ety, I was pun­ished. Sus­pend­ed. Si­lenced.

The out­pour­ing of love from fam­i­ly, friends, health­care work­ers, pa­tients, jour­nal­ists, at­tor­neys and the pub­lic was over­whelm­ing. I can­not be­gin to ex­press my grat­i­tude. Hun­dreds of mes­sages. Phone calls. So­cial me­dia posts. Hugs from strangers. Peo­ple who said, “Doc, we’re read­ing you every Fri­day—keep writ­ing!” Pa­tients who re­mem­bered when I stayed late to re­view their labs or called to check on their moth­er. The el­der­ly gen­tle­man who found my of­fice just to de­liv­er a hand-writ­ten note of sup­port and Scrip­ture from Isa­iah 54:17: “No weapon formed against you shall pros­per, and every tongue that ris­es against you in judge­ment you shall con­demn.”

To all of you, thank you. I am still stand­ing be­cause you re­fused to let me fall. You have giv­en me courage I will car­ry for the rest of my life.

But this is about more than one doc­tor. This is about a much larg­er dis­ease: cen­sor­ship.

Cen­sor­ship is nev­er neu­tral. It al­ways pro­tects those in pow­er—not pa­tients, not pro­fes­sion­als, not the pub­lic. In health­care, it of­ten shields ad­min­is­tra­tive fail­ure, po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and in­sti­tu­tion­al rot.

Free­dom of ex­pres­sion is not a dec­o­ra­tive phrase tucked in­to the Con­sti­tu­tion—it is a pil­lar of democ­ra­cy. When pub­lic ser­vants, ed­u­ca­tors, jour­nal­ists or doc­tors are pun­ished for speak­ing hon­est­ly, it sig­nals that truth it­self has be­come a threat.

In this coun­try, we like to say we are free. But when fear creeps in­to board­rooms, hos­pi­tal wards, class­rooms and news­rooms, can we still claim free­dom? It’s a top-down in­tim­i­da­tion—not al­ways loud, but in­sid­i­ous.

Crit­i­cism is not trea­son. Writ­ing a col­umn is not a crime. What we are see­ing is a cul­ture where speak­ing out is met with swift re­tal­i­a­tion—and it is dressed up as “dis­ci­pline.”

The hypocrisy is breath­tak­ing. We are told to be “ad­vo­cates for pa­tients.” But when we ad­vo­cate too loud­ly, we are re­moved. We are told to “lead by ex­am­ple.” But when we lead with in­tegri­ty, we are un­der­mined.

We clap for health­care work­ers dur­ing pan­demics and call them he­roes. But the mo­ment they speak in­con­ve­nient truths, we turn them in­to vil­lains. That’s not just hypocrisy—it’s cow­ardice.

If I can be sus­pend­ed for telling the truth, what hap­pens to the young nurse speak­ing up about staff short­ages? What hap­pens to the teacher who dares to ques­tion the cur­ricu­lum?

What hap­pens to the so­cial work­er, the ju­nior doc­tor, the pa­tient ad­vo­cate?

Democ­ra­cy can­not sur­vive with­out dis­sent. This is not democ­ra­cy. This is fear, dis­guised as or­der.

Our Con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees free­dom of ex­pres­sion. Not just for politi­cians, but for every cit­i­zen. That in­cludes doc­tors. That in­cludes me.

We saw the seeds of cen­sor­ship sown dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Doc­tors around the world who raised le­git­i­mate con­cerns about in­ad­e­quate per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment, un­clear pro­to­cols, or vac­cine roll­out in­con­sis­ten­cies were shut down.

Ques­tions were brand­ed as dis­loy­al­ty or “con­tro­ver­sial.” We were told to fol­low “the sci­ence,” but on­ly if it aligned with the of­fi­cial nar­ra­tive. In a time when open di­a­logue could have saved lives, si­lence was en­forced. It was a fright­en­ing re­minder that even a pub­lic health cri­sis can be­come a po­lit­i­cal tool.

Peo­ple are tired of in­jus­tice and tired of in­ef­fi­cien­cy. They are tired of feel­ing like speak­ing up will cost them their job, their se­cu­ri­ty, their peace.

But some­thing shift­ed this past week.

Some­thing pow­er­ful.

The pub­lic stood up.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt like we were no longer whis­per­ing in the dark.

Make no mis­take—the goal is not to sus­pend me. The goal is to scare you. To cre­ate a chill­ing ef­fect so deep that no­body dares write, ques­tion or re­sist again.

But I will not be si­lenced.

I will con­tin­ue to host Ask The Doc­tor on Thurs­day nights—where the peo­ple call, ques­tion, laugh and learn. I will con­tin­ue to write my Fri­day columns—not for pow­er, but for peo­ple. For the sin­gle moth­er wor­ried about her child’s asth­ma. For the pen­sion­er wait­ing months for a clin­ic date. For the man who can’t af­ford his di­a­betes med­ica­tion.

To my col­leagues who are watch­ing this un­fold, un­sure of what to say or do—I say this: speak. While you still can. Speak for your pa­tients. Speak for your con­science. Speak even if your voice shakes. Be­cause if we all stay silent, they win.

I am not bit­ter. I am not bro­ken.

In fact, I am more com­mit­ted than ever.

To those who tried to si­lence me: you have on­ly strength­ened my re­solve.

And to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go: I will not stop fight­ing for you. I will not stop writ­ing. I will not stop car­ing.

Med­i­cine is not just about treat­ing ill­ness—it is about stand­ing for what is right.

We must re­mem­ber this: the pen is still might­i­er than the scalpel. Some­times, it is our words that heal a na­tion.

And some­times, the most pow­er­ful pre­scrip­tion is the truth.