More SWRHA Board members resign

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s Board has been dis­solved af­ter a se­ries of res­ig­na­tions from Board mem­bers.

On Thurs­day, more di­rec­tors ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions to take ef­fect with­in two weeks.

The re­port­ed res­ig­na­tions fol­low those of four board mem­bers: for­mer deputy chair­man Natasha Mooni­lal, for­mer chair­man Anil Go­sine, di­rec­tor Dr Cha­toor­goon and di­rec­tor Sinanan Dass. Dr Cha­toor­goon said he re­signed as he want­ed to serve on a na­tion­al lev­el. Go­sine said he re­signed for per­son­al rea­sons, while Dass said at 78 years old he could no longer bear the bur­den of a Board ap­point­ment.

Mooni­lal, a qual­i­fied at­tor­ney, was the first to re­sign in Feb­ru­ary 2026. Her po­si­tion was nev­er filled. The oth­er three, Dr Cha­toor­goon, Dass and Go­sine, re­signed last Mon­day, leav­ing ques­tions about the board’s com­po­si­tion and its abil­i­ty to car­ry out its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

On Thurs­day, Shar­ma, Gokool-Seep­er­sad, Hall, Richard­son and Saun­ders al­so re­signed. Richard­son, a qual­i­fied nurse, is the wife of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der.

Dr Cha­toor­goon has raised con­cerns about the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the board and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr She­vanand Gopeesingh, al­leg­ing that the CEO re­fused to im­ple­ment de­ci­sions unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved by the board.

“There were four board res­o­lu­tions the eight-mem­ber board had unan­i­mous­ly passed, but the CEO point blank re­fused to im­ple­ment them,” Dr Cha­toor­goon told CNC3 News.

“This CEO was dis­mis­sive of, dis­re­spect­ful to and dis­obe­di­ent to the SWRHA Board.”

Since Fri­day, CNC3 News has been at­tempt­ing to reach Dr Gopeesingh and Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe for com­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful.

At­tempts to con­tact SWRHA’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Kevon Ger­vais al­so proved fu­tile.

The SWRHA caters for over 600,000 pa­tients and is the largest RHA in the coun­try. It is re­spon­si­ble for three hos­pi­tals and 31 health cen­tres across South Trinidad, in­clud­ing three dis­trict health fa­cil­i­ties.