UNC: Ask developed nations for mobile hospital units

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is urging the government to appeal to developed nations for the use of mobile hospital units. She said this would increase bed space and bolster the parallel health care system.

Speaking during the UNC’s Virtual Report programme on Monday night, Persad-Bissessar said, “Make contact with developed countries, Don’t be afraid to beg – or if you don’t want to beg, I’m sure you will draw down on the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund. I’m sure you will raid it again.

"You can also ask for donations.”

She urged supporters to continue to follow the health protocols. She noted a typographical error in the Health Ministry’s covid19 update on Sunday and called on the government to give the true figures of people tested, cases, and deaths. She said Trinidad and Tobago cannot sustain the number of deaths currently occurring, but the government refuses to engage anyone’s help in fighting the covid19 vaccine.

“He keeps comparing us to India, but not the UK and the US, which have vaccinated vast numbers of their populations. This will not suit his useless narrative.

"The only way out of this pandemic is a united effort between the government, the Opposition, and the private and public sectors.”

Persad-Bissessar said while the hamper initiative proposed by the Prime Minister was positive, NAMDEVCO had contacted her office to say the projected number of 600 hampers per constituency could not be provided because of recent flooding.

She said there were no proposals for rental relief, food cards, or deferral of utility payments in the government’s plans. She commended MPs who had come together with the private sector and other stakeholders in their constituencies to help their constituents.

Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Dr Rai Ragbir said healthcare workers are physically and mentally overworked, and citizens are panicking. He said people are succumbing to the covid19 virus at home when their oxygen levels plummet suddenly. He proposed that a relationship be developed between the medical personnel in the private and public sectors to monitor people in home quarantine.

“You have a hotline where we work together, because the personnel in the public sector are overwhelmed and exhausted. As a private practitioner, I have many patients who have covid19.

"To do the home quarantine, the medical officers would interact with them via phone and if they need resources we get it to them. If their oxygen levels start to drop, then we get them to hospital.

:What is important, even before patients become breathless, the oxygen levels may drop significantly and this indicates that their coronavirus infection has deteriorated.”

Ragbir expressed support for the Sinopharm vaccine and urged supporters to get vaccinated. He said they should still practise health protocols once they had got the vaccine. He said the government had fallen short on education programmes to remove people’s doubts about the vaccines.

Chaguanas East MP Vandana Mohit said the government had locked down the country with no vision of how poor people would survive. She said the measures Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced on Monday were insufficient.

“Last year the total number of salary relief grants was 86,000, and 7,000 got debit cards. This was a total of 93,000 grants.

"This year Imbert said 20,000 people would be eligible for grants at $1,500 per head. Basically he said, who get is lucky, who don’t get, too bad.

"But people are still awaiting acknowledgement of their application for the first set of grants. There was also no mention of rent relief, so if people can’t pay their rent or mortgage, they’ll get evicted.”

Princes Town MP Barry Padarath called for the posthumous award of the nation’s highest honour to Dr Shival Sieunarine and all other healthcare workers who had lost their lives in the fight against covid19.

He also enquired whether contact tracing had been carried out for the Prime Minister and why the media had not pursued the question.

He called on MPs to take a pay cut and try to live on $1,000 a month as “they expect people to do.”