NWRHA board clueless over medical equipment

IT TOOK a timely intervention by La Brea MP Hedwige Bereaux to save board members of the North-West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) major embarrassment, when they were caught off-guard and claimed ignorance of any knowledge of medical equipment purportedly sourced for the authority by the Living Waters Community from a Florida firm and collected by NWRHA vans. The issue arose during yesterday’s session of the Joint Select Committee (JSC) at the Parliament Chamber, which was chaired by Independent Senator Mary King.  Initially, the JSC highlighted documents which pointed to the collection of approximately six crates of various medical equipment by NWRHA panel vans from the Living Waters Community compound. At this point, board members indicated they were unaware of any such transaction.

On this admission, Senators King and Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan attempted to question board members further for clarification, but La Brea MP Hedwige Bereaux came to board members’ rescue saying he objected to the method of inquiry. “You can’t just ambush them,” Bereaux told King. “You are compounding the problem. If you have something like that, instead of an ambush, give them the documents and let them investigate. You’ve gone with an innuendo,” Bereaux said. But Seepersad-Bachan told Bereaux the matter was raised at a committee meeting where documents “showed that NWRHA vans collected the equipment. We assumed management knew of it.” She later told Newsday the committee initially intended to ask the board how equipment in question was being utilised and were shocked to hear the board was unaware of the equipment’s existence.  

Bereaux’s protests caused Senator King to agree to provide copies of the document to board members who were instructed to investigate and submit an audited report to the JSC. After the session, Seepersad-Bachan said the JSC got a list of equipment coming to the Living Waters Community and was told the equipment was collected by NWRHA panel vans. Regarding Bereaux’s claim of an “ambush”, Seepersad-Bachan defended King saying, “when we got the information we thought they (the NWRHA) knew of it. However she (King) dropped it when she realised the NWRHA did not know anything.” She also asserted that this was information regarding concerns of members of the public and as such would be investigated.