Govt wins round one to split NWRHA

GOVERNMENT Friday cleared the first hurdle to split the North-West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) into two separate Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) and undo what it said was a grave miscalculation by the UNC. Speaking during debate in the House of Representatives on a motion to annul the RHA Amendment Order 2004, Caroni Central MP Dr Hamza Rafeeq pleaded with government not to split the NWRHA. He claimed this would multiply existing problems in the health sector.

However when House Speaker Barry Sinanan put the motion to a vote, there was paltry support from the 13 Opposition MPs present while the 19 Government MPs gave the motion a resounding “no.” “The ‘nos’ have it. I regret the motion has failed,” Sinanan informed the Lower House.
Health Minister John Rahael said the NWRHA’s current inefficiencies were linked to the UNC’s ill-fated decision in 2000 to incorporate the financially-troubled Central RHA into the NWRHA. Rahael ordered an audit of the NWRHA’s finances in July after the Authority failed to account for the sum of $107 million which was supposed to have been paid to the Board of Inland Revenue. This audit will be completed by December 31. When debate on this Order began in Parliament on November 5, Rahael raised questions about the legality of a five-year contract awarded in 2000 to HTI Limited to place CT scan machines at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. 

He said subsequent information from the NWRHA suggested it never received monies it was supposed to under a joint venture arrangement with HTI and a company which was supposed to be formed between the two was never formed. Rahael said the Ministry’s lawyers are now looking into the situation. HTI’s  managing director Rodger Varley and former NWRHA chairman Dr Tim Gopeesingh said there was no impropriety in that contract. Varley said HTI would leave Trinidad and Tobago once its contract expired in August 2005. Rafeeq also claimed that the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital was lacking several pieces of critical equipment such as foetal monitors.

He said this would be exposed when a parliamentary joint select committee (JSC), government  ministries and statutory authorities visit the hospital on Tuesday. Rahael reminded Rafeeq that since the last outbreak of enterobacter at that hospital last year, there has been no further outbreak due to the preventative measures taken by government. In moving for the Lower House’s adjournment to Wednesday, Leader of Government Business Ken Valley informed MPs that the Caribbean Community Removal of Restrictions Bill 2004 would be one of several Bills which Government would seek to debate on that day.