Gov’t moves to pay off $400M health sector debt—Seecheran

Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The Gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly work­ing to set­tle out­stand­ing pay­ments to sup­pli­ers in the health sec­tor, says Dr Rishad Seecher­an, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­roni East.

Dr Seecher­an spoke with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day dur­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions at Eco Park, St He­le­na. He ac­knowl­edged that the Min­istry of Health is grap­pling with sig­nif­i­cant debts owed to var­i­ous sup­pli­ers.

“There are con­sid­er­able bills be­ing owed to sup­pli­ers in the Min­istry of Health,” he said. “Dur­ing the Mid-Year Re­view (of the 2024-2025 Bud­get) the sub­stan­tive Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lakram Bo­doe will be mak­ing a re­quest for funds to clear up many of the sup­pli­ers who are owed mon­ey over 90 days. We will not be able to pay every­one but we will pay as many sup­pli­ers as we can dur­ing the Mid-Year Re­view.”

Dr Seecher­an es­ti­mat­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly $400 mil­lion is owed for sun­dries, equip­ment, and ser­vices.

The min­istry is al­so prepar­ing to roll out den­tal ser­vices across all Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) as part of ef­forts to en­hance the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. In ad­di­tion, it is fo­cus­ing on im­prov­ing men­tal health­care ser­vices.

“We are look­ing at a roadmap to the de­liv­ery of those ser­vices and we are hop­ing to de­liv­er the first year of that roadmap dur­ing the next fis­cal year,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing the back­log of surg­eries, Dr Seecher­an not­ed that a com­mit­tee has been tasked with mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions. He said there is space for surgery and sur­geons to un­der­take the chal­lenge.

Re­gard­ing the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, he said the min­istry was await­ing a re­port and plans are un­der­way to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ty to mod­ern-day stan­dards.

Com­ment­ing on the con­di­tion of Wel­come Road in Cunu­pia, Dr Seecher­an con­firmed that a re­quest has been made for the road’s re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. Res­i­dents protest­ed sev­er­al times last year, urg­ing the then PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion to ad­dress the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing road. While some mi­nor patch­work has been done, the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to call for more sub­stan­tial re­lief.