Deyalsingh: UNC never helped covid19 fight

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said refocusing the health care sector is the priority now that the country is moving out of the acute stage of the covid19 pandemic. He said there would be a renewed focus on the areas of NCDs and mental health, among others

Speaking during his contribution to the 2022/2023 budget debate on Friday, he said, contrary to statements made by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar during her contribution, TT is not ranked highest in the world in covid19 deaths. He said TT has a death rate of 2.3 per capita, with the top ranking being 18.1. He reminded the Opposition that several of their members had opposed the handling of the pandemic, and were still calling for a commission of enquiry into the matter.

“I hope if the UNC comes into power and there is an enquiry, that the lawyers call the Opposition Leader and ask her what she said about sunlight killing covid19, the member from Oropouche East to explain his statement about the population being guinea pigs for vaccines, and Senator Nakhid for saying he wouldn’t take a communist vaccine. The UNC never helped in the fight against covid19, they took us to court on every occasion and vilified our public servants, they made their lives a living nightmare.”

He said improvements and construction at the Port of Spain General Hospital, the Arima Hospital, the San Fernando General Hospital, and the ministry’s new administration building would continue.

Deyalsingh said his ministry would continue to develop its voluntary blood donation system, moving away from the system of exclusivity where people had accounts to donations which are freely given without knowing who would receive the blood.

He said the TTMoves project introduced in the fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs) would continue, and the ministry would take mobile units into communities to conduct screening programmes. He said it was working on totally revamping and speeding up the reporting of MRI, CTI and mammography scans.

Deyalsingh said the ministry would be taking a novel life course approach to dealing with diabetes.

“We are taking a life course approach to diabetes via an IDB-funded project with Prof Paul Teelucksingh. For the first time in the history of this country, we will have national guidelines on diabetes in pregnancy. We are increasing care for diabetic women before pregnancy, during pregnancy, when the child is born, and beyond, because a diabetic obese mother will most likely have an overweight baby who is prone to diabetes. We have to stop diabetes at birth and pre-birth.”

He said the ministry would be initiating a breastfeeding friendly hospital drive, to add to the NCD fight, with the aim of having 50 per cent of children exclusively breastfed by 2025. He said the ministry would also be developing clinical guidelines for the prevention and management of diabetic food infections.

Deyalsingh said the ministry had begun integrating mental health into a wellness model years ago, which had resulted in a reduction in the number of occupants at the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital with more people being treated in their communities. He said the launch of the findcarett.com website had yielded data on those accessing mental health services.

“Since January 2021 to September 29, 2022, we had 41, 219 users with 79,816 page views. The demographic breakdown is interesting. The 18-24 age group was 23 per cent of users, the 25-34 age group, 22 per cent, and the 35-44, 21 per cent. In other words, the 18-44 demographic accounted for 66 per cent of the visits to findcarett seeking advice and help on mental health issues. When you break it down by gender, it’s 59 per cent male, which is a bit surprising, to 40 per cent female. So now the we have this body of data, we go out into the communities and know who we need to target.”

He noted that while people continue to complain about the availability of CDAP drugs, the fault lay with pharmacies who were not ordering on time.

Deyalsingh listed projects which had been carried out in his constituency and thanked his ministerial colleagues for his assistance.

Caroni East MP Dr Rishi Seecharan, in his response, focused on the topic of covid19. He said the Opposition Leader had not said sunlight would kill covid, but had meant that it would kill the virus on surfaces. He said comments made about vaccines were concerning those which had had their trials stopped, including the J&J vaccine.

He said while TT had some of the most restrictive border policies at the beginning of the pandemic, this had not stopped the country from having one of the highest case fatality rates in the world, and the highest death rate in Caricom.

Seecharan called for an audit into the funds used for covid19 from March 2020 to present. He noted that there was no mention in the budget of implementing the recommendations in the Seemungal report, which he said highlighted systemic deficiencies in the system, stress on health care workers, lack of infrastructure and equipment, and other issues.

He asked whether Deyalsingh had pre-ordered the new Moderna bivalent vaccines which were tailored to the omicron variant of the covid19 virus, as well as the drug Paxlovid which could be used in unvaccinated people.

Seecharan also noted that the minister had not mentioned whether monkeypox vaccines had been ordered since the disease was still spreading worldwide. He noted that poliomyelitis was spreading in the US and asked what the status of TT’s vaccination campaign was.

He asked for assistance with various bridges and schools in his constituency.

Seecharan ended his contribution by asking the minister to modernise the Dental Act to deal with illegal dentists practising in TT.