Senior doctor critical of foreign doctors

A SENIOR doctor at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) at Mt Hope yesterday said the Health Ministry was trying to “foist” foreign medical personnel on the institution. Dr Rowland Moze, medical chief of staff at the EWMSC, yesterday told the commissioners investigating the operations and delivery of health care services in TT that “a couple of Cubans” and a United Nations volunteer doctor who did not go through the necessary interview process,  “were sent via the ministry on order.” Cuban and UN doctors were brought to this country in 2002 and 2003 in response to shortages of medical personnel.

At a meeting with the commission in the North Central Regional Health Authority boardroom, Dr Moze said he was absent when the doctors were sent for employment, and they “fell under the radar.” However, when he returned, he arranged for the doctors to be interviewed, and only the UNDP doctor was retained. He said the person conducting interviews with the foreign medical personnel for the ministry was a psychiatrist. Moze said the interview team at the EWMSC includes a human resource officer, and senior doctor from the department in which the doctor would be employed. “You can’t drop anyone in the system who has a stethoscope,” Moze said.

While he understood the employment of foreign medical personnel was done to deal with the shortage, he said his concern was with safety and competence. Earlier, Commission chairperson Gladys Gaffoor asked the clinical director of the Anesthetic Department, Dr Lorna Merritt, if the foreign nurses had helped the institution, and her response was “no.” She said they did not have “proper” training and local nurses “had to be watching them and had to hold their hand.” Dr Merritt also said there were language difficulties. However, Merritt said the Filipino nurses recently hired “actually do have training.”

She referred to a UN doctor who was supposed to be hired as a consultant but, based on the insistence of the former medical chief-of-staff, was hired as a house officer. Merritt said he has now progressed so that he can work as a registrar. When Gaffoor enquired who was responsible for passing the foreign doctors to work in local institutions, she was told by fellow commissioner Wazir Hosein that the ministry had its own panel for registering the Cuban and UN doctors. He said the local Medical Board had been bypassed.