US grant to boost healthcare system

Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Trinidad and To­ba­go is set to ben­e­fit from a TT$42 mil­lion (US$6 mil­lion) grant from the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment aimed at strength­en­ing the coun­try’s health­care sys­tem over the next two years.

The an­nounce­ment was made on Tues­day by NCRHA chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh dur­ing a vis­it by a del­e­ga­tion from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy to the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing at the event, Gopeesingh said the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty deeply val­ues the long­stand­ing health­care part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States.

He com­mend­ed the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices and the U.S. Em­bassy for their con­tin­ued lead­er­ship, sup­port and in­vest­ment in health­care de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to Gopeesingh, the US$6 mil­lion com­mit­ment rep­re­sents a ma­jor in­vest­ment in dis­ease pre­ven­tion, pub­lic health sur­veil­lance, health­care pre­pared­ness, and the pro­tec­tion of the health and safe­ty of cit­i­zens in both coun­tries.

He said the NCRHA was en­cour­aged by the on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the U.S. Em­bassy and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­istry of Health in ad­vanc­ing dig­i­tal health­care sys­tems, health­care train­ing and pub­lic health tech­nol­o­gy.

Among the ini­tia­tives high­light­ed were the Trinidad and To­ba­go e-learn­ing health por­tal and the strength­en­ing of the Health In­for­ma­tion Plat­form, both of which, he said, would sig­nif­i­cant­ly ben­e­fit health­care in­sti­tu­tions such as the NCRHA.

“These ini­tia­tives will im­prove health­care mon­i­tor­ing, strength­en ma­ter­nal and women’s health ser­vices, en­hance dis­ease sur­veil­lance, im­prove health­care plan­ning and sup­port bet­ter health­care out­comes for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Gopeesingh not­ed that the Unit­ed States has long been recog­nised glob­al­ly for its lead­er­ship in sci­ence, health­care in­no­va­tion, med­ical re­search, tech­nol­o­gy and pub­lic health.

He said the coun­try’s con­tin­ued will­ing­ness to part­ner with na­tions such as Trinidad and To­ba­go in build­ing stronger and more re­silient health­care sys­tems re­flect­ed gen­uine in­ter­na­tion­al lead­er­ship and com­mit­ment to glob­al pub­lic health.

Re­fer­ring to the pro­grammes, poli­cies and ini­tia­tives sup­port­ed through the part­ner­ship, Gopeesingh de­scribed them as in­vest­ments in hu­man life, pub­lic health se­cu­ri­ty and the well-be­ing of com­mu­ni­ties.

He added that Trinidad and To­ba­go deeply val­ues its re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States, de­scrib­ing the coun­try as one of this na­tion’s clos­est and most val­ued al­lies.

Gopeesingh al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of the Unit­ed States on the up­com­ing 250th an­niver­sary of Amer­i­can in­de­pen­dence, stat­ing that the coun­try has served as a glob­al bea­con of democ­ra­cy, sci­en­tif­ic ad­vance­ment, eco­nom­ic strength, in­no­va­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ty.