Deyalsingh defends public health officials

HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh on Friday hailed his team of public health officials for combating the covid19 pandemic, saying they were being unfairly attacked by the UNC but were legally debarred from defending themselves.

He was the first respondent to an Opposition no-confidence motion against him in the House of Representatives moved by Caroni East MP Dr Rishad Seecheran.

Deyalsingh challenged Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe and Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Dr Rai Ragbir to say in their upcoming contributions if they agreed with a criticism of these medical officials once made by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Deyalsingh read at length the curricula vitae of the four officials – Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Rishan Parasram, epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds, Caura Hospital thoracic medical director Dr Michelle Trotman and Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards.

Saying that in the face of UNC attacks the four were bound to silence by the code of conduct of the Civil Service Regulations, Deyalsingh said, "Bullies know soft targets can't respond."

He urged Opposition MPs who were doctors to defend the quartet.

"I am proud of these sons and daughters of Trinidad and Tobago."

Deyalsingh said one could hear the pride in the Prime Minister's voice whenever he summoned Parasram to give his report at his regular briefings on covid19.

"Do you know the bush medicine that will be practised when Kamla Persad-Bissessar trots out Trevor Sayers? Trevor Sayers will be the CMO of this county under a Kamla Persad-Bissessar government, because they believe in sunshine, they believe in rum: 'Keep the bars open.' 'Puncheon and Lime.'

"Yes, you put Trevor Sayers there to blow Baygon (bug spray) in your eye to cure covid. That is your solution."

By contrast he hailed Trotman as "more the mother of the nation now than anybody else. When she speaks she is trusted, she is forthright, she is empathetic, she is direct."

He said the four had led Trinidad and Tobago's medical response to covid19.

"We started off with a two-bed isolation ward at Caura (Hospital) and 20 ward beds. It has grown to 16 hospitals and step-down facilities for the acutely ill and confirmed positive cases that could now house 1,022 persons. That is what the Minister of Health did."

He contrasted TT with Italy, which had been brought to its knees by covid19 despite having perhaps the word's best healthcare system.

"At the height of the pandemic the priest had to stand up (at) a church and the hearses had to pass and he would bless each hearse for two seconds flat because there was a line-up. We didn't have that."

Replying to Seecheran, he said TT's covid19 case fatality rate was about 2.3-2.4 per cent.

Deyalsingh listed the efforts to get vaccines, denying as "a flight of fantasy" Seecheran's claim he had refused to sign orders in 2020.

"We have a non-disclosure agreement with Pfizer. We are in talks with Moderna. They say they cannot supply until the second half of 2020.

"We are in talks with AstraZeneca bilaterally. We were in talks with Sinopharm since October 1, 2020 and that has borne fruit."

He said he had been right not ever to order vaccines unapproved by the WHO, else just one death from such vaccines would have derailed the whole vaccination programme and brought lawsuits.

Saying he gets hundreds of messages daily praising how smoothly the vaccination programme is now running, he said the UNC had constantly sought to derail it.

"In the face of a global shortage, let me say it again, we have landed 457,590 (doses).

"What are our stats to date? First dose: 193,840. That is 13.7 per cent of the population."

Saying this weekend some 20,000 more people will be vaccinated, he said this will increase the population who got a first dose to 15.2 per cent. Some 63,647 people had got a second dose, he added.

Deyalsingh also said he had reduced maternal mortality such that each year eight-12 women are alive who might have died in years gone by, as were 100 newborn babies, TT having achieved a UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 12 years before the scheduled date.