Military hospital for Couva? Oh no!

THE EDITOR: There is an old saying “not everything you get free is good to take.” I read with amazement in a daily paper that Couva was to get a military hospital, a gift from the Chinese government to the government of Trinidad and Tobago. Something is wrong here, Couva has long been clamouring for a proper hospital and especially so since the Point Lisas Industrial Estate was built. The UNC promised to build the proposed hospital complete with burns and emergency respiratory units to take care of injuries caused by fires or toxic spills. I remember Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and then UNC aldermen leading protest marches through the area for this hospital.

The UNC went on to win elections in 1995 and cleared a five acre plot of land in preparation for the proposed hospital. We all waited with baited breath. The disappointment was palpable and bitter when the project was completed just before the 2000 general elections.
What we in Couva got was an upscale clinic, a glorified health centre which also serves as an accident and emergency centre. There are no beds for the convalescent, a maternity ward is non-existent and pregnant women from as far as Chaguanas and Grand Couva have to find their way to San Fernando. Don’t ask for the burns or emergency respiratory units. Injured workers at the Point Lisas Estate have to be ferried in screaming ambulances to San Fernando or Petrotrin’s Augustus Long Hospital at Pointe-a-Pierre.

Now to compound this foolishness we are getting a military hospital. To do what? Where will our soldiers get these combat wounds that necessitates a military hospital? We already know the results of any military conflict with Venezuela even before any such thing happens, so perish the thought. Foreign Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift should have quietly indicated to the Chinese that Couva needs an industrial hospital instead of what they offered. Now we have accepted this needless gift and will be saddled with it for years to come. Patrick Manning’s administration needs to sit down and really try to get something right for a change. One wonders what really goes on in cabinet.

MC DONALD JAMES
Couva