Prime Minister praises healthcare workers in Easter message

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has praised the con­tri­bu­tion of health­care work­ers in her East­er mes­sage, even as she con­tin­ues to re­main silent on the im­passe be­tween nurs­es and the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA).

It was a fleet­ing and gen­er­al ref­er­ence to “health­care work­ers” yes­ter­day, but the first men­tion of that sec­tor since the nurs­es com­menced planned protests over re­duced over­time rates (from $75 to $60 per hour) to align with “ap­proved rates.”

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) has said this is a roll­back of long-stand­ing arrange­ments that com­pen­sate for the lack of staff.

Guardian Me­dia has re­peat­ed­ly sought com­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter on the on­go­ing im­passe, but those ef­forts have so far been un­suc­cess­ful.

Ques­tions were again sent via What­sApp yes­ter­day, ask­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to clear­ly state Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the mat­ter; how­ev­er, she did not re­spond.

The sit­u­a­tion has re­port­ed­ly im­pact­ed health­care ser­vices at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, yet nei­ther Per­sad-Bisses­sar nor Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe have re­spond­ed to a se­ries of ques­tions.

In her East­er mes­sage to the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I ex­tend sin­cere greet­ings to the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty across Trinidad and To­ba­go as you ob­serve the East­er sea­son.

“I al­so ac­knowl­edge with deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion your en­dur­ing con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al life through faith, ser­vice, ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, char­i­ty and moral lead­er­ship.”

This is the on­ly ref­er­ence, al­beit a brief men­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter has made to hos­pi­tal work­ers since the be­gin­ning of this stale­mate be­tween the nurs­es and the State.

On Tues­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of ig­nor­ing a deep­en­ing health­care cri­sis, call­ing on her to im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dress the na­tion and out­line a plan to fix the sys­tem.

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter “can­not con­tin­ue to ig­nore the suf­fer­ing of cit­i­zens by turn­ing a blind eye to the col­lapse of the health­care sys­tem.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader was sharply crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion, ar­gu­ing that its re­sponse has been dis­mis­sive and out of touch with the re­al­i­ties fac­ing both pa­tients and front­line staff.