Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 17/12/2025 08:01

Red party's health scandal

LEE MERRICK PERMIT ME to raise two points. Firstly, if what is coming out, that $80 million worth of pharmaceutical drugs were left to expire over the last ten years when the red party was in power is factually correct, then I call for heads to roll and people to make a jail. It is no secret that healthcare in TT, which is heavily subsidised by taxpayers, has been abysmal for decades. It is no secret that people are on waiting lists, some for years, to access basic health services including an X-ray. Imagine you break your foot and get put on a waiting list to get an X-ray and by the time they call you in your foot has healed on its own and you are good to go. That is the reality for many people in this country, especially those who cannot afford to "go private" and pay for the very healthcare services that are subsidised by the state. It is no secret that people have expired while waiting to get cheaper drugs in the CDAP programme. So to hear that $80 million in potentially life-saving drugs were left parked up in some warehouse in the Health Ministry and allowed to expire, while poor people can't get drugs in the dispensary of public hospitals, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Which is why I insist that somebody is found culpable and make a jail. It is not enough to hear of this criminal act of negligence only. The country is crying out for justice. Secondly, if what the prime minister said about $100 million worth in medical equipment being left to rot at the mothballed Couva hospital is true, then somebody needs to lose their freedom. I cannot believe a government could be so callous, so uncaring, so unconscionable as to allow critical medical equipment, including MRI machines, to lie dormant for ten years while people were left to suffer and, in some cases, die, because they couldn't access medical care, diagnosis and treatment. And all because of politics. OK, so you didn't want to open the Couva hospital because it was built by the yellow party. Fine. If you want to deprive children of specialist medical care, that is up to the leaders of the red party. But why, I ask, couldn't all of that medical equipment in the hospital be sent to other hospitals, to other RHAs to be put to use for the public good? Somebody, whether a former prime minister, a former health minister, a former permanent secretary, must be held accountable. Somebody needs to make a serious jail over this. It is not UNC or PNM money that was used to build that hospital and have it outfitted to the tune of $100 million with medical equipment. It was we the taxpayers who paid for that hospital and that equipment. And it was we the taxpayers, just as was the case with the $80 million in expired drugs, who have been deprived of the use of this hospital and all of their specialised medical equipment in it. The more I read this story in the Newsday, the more I am getting to actually physically hate politicians. I cannot believe people can be so godless as to shut down a hospital and allow medical equipment to basically decay. I wait to hear what the folks from the red party will say. I fear it may not be enough to diminish the anger I am feeling at the moment. The only thing I believe can make these wrongs right is for the red party to remit to the state the $80 million and $100 million we would have lost because of its callous, politically-driven malice against this nation. In the words, Pennelope Beckles, I beg to move. The post Red party's health scandal appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.