PM praises US partnership after dental mission

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has praised the strong re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States, say­ing the part­ner­ship con­tin­ues to de­liv­er tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits in health­care and oth­er key sec­tors.

Speak­ing on Fri­day at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Unit­ed States Den­tal Readi­ness Train­ing Ex­er­cise at the Den­tal Hos­pi­tal of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked the US Gov­ern­ment, the US Em­bassy and US South­ern Com­mand for their con­tin­ued sup­port.

She de­scribed the ex­er­cise as an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the “en­dur­ing part­ner­ship” be­tween the two coun­tries, built on mu­tu­al re­spect, shared de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and a com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the lives of cit­i­zens.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the col­lab­o­ra­tion ex­tends be­yond health­care to se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, ed­u­ca­tion, trade and en­er­gy, adding that it con­tin­ues to evolve while de­liv­er­ing mea­sur­able ben­e­fits to both na­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed to pre­vi­ous joint ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing the 2025 vis­it of the USNS Com­fort, which pro­vid­ed spe­cial­ist con­sul­ta­tions, surg­eries, pro­fes­sion­al train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for thou­sands of peo­ple.

She al­so thanked the Unit­ed States for do­nat­ing med­ical equip­ment to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, say­ing the equip­ment strength­ened di­ag­nos­tic ca­pa­bil­i­ties and im­proved pa­tient care. She al­so cred­it­ed sup­port from the US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion and oth­er agen­cies with help­ing to strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic health sys­tem.

Re­fer­ring to the week-long den­tal ex­er­cise, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said cit­i­zens across the coun­try ben­e­fit­ed from es­sen­tial den­tal ser­vices, while a par­al­lel vet­eri­nary pro­gramme with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture re­flect­ed a shared com­mit­ment to the One Health ap­proach.

She said the mis­sion demon­strat­ed that in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion can strength­en health­care sys­tems, build in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and im­prove lives.

Ear­li­er, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe de­scribed the hu­man­i­tar­i­an mis­sion as more than an out­reach ex­er­cise, call­ing it a demon­stra­tion of what coun­tries can achieve when they work to­geth­er.

Bo­doe stressed that oral health is a crit­i­cal part of over­all health and said ac­cess to time­ly den­tal care pro­tects health, pre­serves dig­ni­ty and im­proves qual­i­ty of life.

He said the mis­sion de­liv­ered ex­am­i­na­tions, clean­ings, fill­ings and ex­trac­tions to peo­ple who may have faced bar­ri­ers to treat­ment, pro­vid­ing im­me­di­ate re­lief from pain and restor­ing con­fi­dence for many pa­tients.

The min­is­ter al­so said the Min­istry of Health con­tin­ues to strength­en pub­lic oral health­care by ex­pand­ing ac­cess to den­tal ser­vices, pro­mot­ing pre­ven­tive care and sup­port­ing oral health ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes, par­tic­u­lar­ly for chil­dren.

Bo­doe al­so hint­ed that den­tal ser­vices could re­ceive ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, telling the Prime Min­is­ter there “might be a sur­prise in the bud­get” with a new al­lo­ca­tion for den­tal care in keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties.