MP, former medical director: Covid19 report indictment on Deyalsingh’s leadership

FORMER medical director at the San Fernando General Hospital Dr Anand Chatoorgoon, and Caroni East MP Dr Rishad Seecharan say the 105-page report of the covid 19 management committee is a damning indictment on the leadership of Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh.

Chatoorgoon said the report which was laid in the Parliament last week, is, overall, a shameful and disgraceful indictment on the appalling and atrocious state of the public health sector.

“Terrence Deyalsingh and his team at the Ministry of Health should hang their heads in shame at the horrors and terrors revealed in this report.

“Where were they when patients were forced to endure the horrible conditions that existed in many of the public healthcare institutions? Did they not know what the patients were forced to endure? And did they do anything about it or did they just turn a deaf ear to what they heard?”

Chatoorgoon called for Deyalsingh’s resignation and the firing of the board and senior managers at the regional health authorities under whose watch “patients were subjected to unbelievably unacceptable and terrible conditions” while at the public healthcare institutions.

He said more extensive surveys and interviews must be done as the team did not have sufficient time to unearth all the horrors patients endured.

Patients and their relatives must have some redress for the alleged inhumane treatment meted out to them, he suggested.

Seecharan also called for continued assessment and expanded scope of investigation, policies on testing, and the procuring of vaccines and therapeutics.

While commending the committee, led by Prof Terence Seemungal, and urging government urgently implement its 16 recommendations, Seecharan questioned why this committee was not the primary adviser to the Government since the start of the pandemic.

“The committee’s report tells of staff shortages being ‘common,’ of doctors and nurses having to perform ‘non-medical functions,’ and of overwork ‘to the point of exhaustion.’

“Poor working conditions were highlighted with nurses being made to perform ‘long hours in PPE.’

He said the UNC has consistently called for additional nursing and medical staff to be hired to release the stress placed on nurses and doctors combating covid 19.

“The report, which found short-term locum contracts have resulted in great uncertainty and low morale among young doctors, is sadly a confirmation of earlier UNC revelations of major human resource infractions.

“The fact that a single nurse was assigned to as many as 30 patients speaks of a systemic failure to provide adequate nursing resources.

“The lack of foresight to order adequate quantities of Tocilizumab is yet another indictment on the judgement of Minister Deyalsingh. Doctors had to also cope with shortages of Midazolam, Methylprednisolone and Propofol. Dexamethasone was used in instances where Methylprednisolone was indicated.

“Minister Deyalsingh has also failed to combat the high rate of non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) in the population.”