Gonzales distances Opposition from NCRHA gang allegations

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has dis­tanced the par­ty from al­le­ga­tions of gang af­fil­i­a­tion, in­tim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, ex­tor­tion and threats that have prompt­ed a ma­jor shake-up with­in the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA).

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the PNM was un­aware of the al­le­ga­tions now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion but made it clear that the par­ty does not sup­port the em­ploy­ment or pro­tec­tion of crim­i­nals in the state sec­tor.

“I found it to be quite con­cern­ing, and that should con­cern any re­spon­si­ble po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion,” Gon­za­les said.

His com­ments came a day af­ter the NCRHA dis­closed that an in­ter­nal re­view had un­cov­ered re­ports of bul­ly­ing, ex­tor­tion and al­leged gang ac­tiv­i­ty with­in its Pa­tient Es­cort and Hos­pi­tal At­ten­dant Ser­vices de­part­ment, which em­ploys more than 400 peo­ple.

The au­thor­i­ty said it had launched a re­form process af­ter what it de­scribed as an “un­ac­cept­able break­down in re­cruit­ment stan­dards, ac­count­abil­i­ty, dis­ci­pline and man­age­ment over­sight un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

It al­so stat­ed there was “no place with­in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem for gang­ster­ism, in­tim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, ex­tor­tion or be­hav­iour that threat­ens em­ploy­ees, com­pro­mis­es pa­tients or in­ter­feres with the de­liv­ery of health­care.”

While the NCRHA has main­tained that the is­sues were in­her­it­ed from the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, Gon­za­les yes­ter­day re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that his par­ty sanc­tioned the hir­ing of un­suit­able in­di­vid­u­als.

“We don’t have de­tails on this,” he said.

“But if an RHA has in­for­ma­tion that crim­i­nals or peo­ple with crim­i­nal records have been im­prop­er­ly em­ployed with­in the pub­lic sec­tor, the ad­min­is­tra­tion must take cor­rec­tive ac­tion.”

Gon­za­les added that the PNM ful­ly sup­ports prop­er re­cruit­ment pro­ce­dures and ex­pects state agen­cies to act de­ci­sive­ly when wrong­do­ing is un­cov­ered.

“Many in the PNM don’t sup­port the en­gage­ment of crim­i­nals, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the state sec­tor,” he said.

The for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter not­ed that some state agen­cies re­quire ap­pli­cants to sub­mit a cer­tifi­cate of good char­ac­ter from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice as part of the hir­ing process.

“If for one rea­son or the oth­er that was not com­plied with, then what­ev­er cor­rec­tive ac­tion is need­ed to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of these or­gan­i­sa­tions, es­pe­cial­ly our health agen­cies, it must be sup­port­ed,” he said.

Gon­za­les said em­ploy­ment in the state sec­tor should be based on qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ad­her­ence to es­tab­lished re­cruit­ment cri­te­ria.

“As far as the PNM is con­cerned, we al­ways sup­port per­sons who are qual­i­fied and who have sat­is­fied the re­cruit­ment cri­te­ria for po­si­tions with­in the pub­lic sec­tor,” he said.

How­ev­er, he main­tained that any breach of hir­ing pro­to­cols that al­lowed in­di­vid­u­als with crim­i­nal back­grounds in­to state agen­cies must be ad­dressed.

“If those pro­to­cols have been breached and al­lowed per­sons with crim­i­nal pasts to in­fil­trate these or­gan­i­sa­tions, then it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the ad­min­is­tra­tion to take what­ev­er cor­rec­tive ac­tion is nec­es­sary to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of our state agen­cies,” he said.

“Cer­tain­ly, if the PNM was aware of this, the PNM would take cor­rec­tive ac­tion. The PNM doesn’t sup­port or stand in sup­port of any­thing like that.”

Gon­za­les re­it­er­at­ed that the par­ty had not been aware of the cir­cum­stances now be­ing re­vealed and said re­spon­si­bil­i­ty rests with agency ad­min­is­tra­tors to ad­dress any con­firmed wrong­do­ing.

In re­sponse to the NCRHA’s an­nounce­ment, how­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art said the prob­lems af­fect­ing the Pa­tient Es­cort and Hos­pi­tal At­ten­dant Ser­vices de­part­ment were long­stand­ing.

Stu­art said nurs­es and mid­wives had long ex­pe­ri­enced dis­rup­tions when pa­tient es­corts and hos­pi­tal at­ten­dants were un­avail­able for du­ty.

He al­so ques­tioned whether prop­er hir­ing pro­ce­dures had been fol­lowed, sug­gest­ing some re­cruit­ments may have been in­flu­enced by po­lit­i­cal promis­es.

“Fol­low­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, po­lit­i­cal par­ties of­ten go through com­mu­ni­ties, meet peo­ple, promise them jobs in agen­cies such as WASA and the RHAs, and then, up­on tak­ing of­fice, di­rec­tives are sent to fit them in­to po­si­tions,” Stu­art said.

“It is then left to man­age­ment to de­ter­mine whether those per­sons are suit­ed to per­form the tasks re­quired.”

The NCRHA has said the al­le­ga­tions are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed un­der es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures and that de­ci­sive ac­tion will be tak­en where wrong­do­ing is con­firmed. The au­thor­i­ty has al­so main­tained that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed the prob­lems and “will not al­low them to con­tin­ue.”