Imbert promises Health Quality Act

The Government will soon ban cigarette advertising, announced Minister of Health Colm Imbert in the Senate on Tuesday evening, wrapping up debate on the Pharmacy Board (Amendment) Bill 2003. He promised legislation to effect an anti-tobacco agreement — the International Convention on the Control and Regulation of Tobacco, which the Government had signed in May at the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO). The new law he said, would prohibit the advertising of tobacco, control its sale to minors, and impose a strict control on its use and sale.

On the issue of tissue transplant legislation, Imbert disclosed that the law currently only allowed organ transplants between relatives and promised to soon legalise organ donations between other persons. He said that while the former UNC government had passed the Tissue Transplant Act, it could not be effected without attendant Regulations. Imbert trumpeted that he had worked hard with his staff and would lay the regulations in Parliament within a month. On a legislative roll, Imbert pledged to bring to Parliament by December a “landmark” Health Services Quality Act to set out pressumable standards of patient healthcare. The Minister promised to expand the Chronic Disease Assistance Programme  which currently supplies some free medicines to geriatrics, to also cover children under age 16 years, and eventually to cover the whole population.

Imbert hit back at criticisms from Opposition Senator Wade Mark who claimed the Government had run down a fleet of Emergency Health Service (EHS) ambulances supplied by the former adminstration from about 55 to 60 to five to eight. Imbert said the UNC regime had supplied second-hand, left-hand drive ambulances with a limited life-span, which the PNM Government was now trying its best to keep running. He said 17 ambulances were in service, responding to 200 calls per day, each within 10 to 15 minutes. Imbert responded to Mark’s accusations that the Government had unfairly treated both EHS workers and East Indian doctors, saying that it was this Government which had first given contracts to the EHS workers and that the Principal Medical Officer and the several Chief Medical Officers were all of East Indian descent. The Senate unanimously passed the Pharmacy Board (Amendment) Bill 2003.