Colm impressed by Cubans

HEALTH Minister Colm Imbert is expected to be “debriefed” today by a ministerial team which returned from Cuba on Saturday night on a job recruitment exercise for doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

The Minister told Newsday over the weekend that he was impressed with the Cubans and after he is updated by the team he would be able to say exactly how successful the trip was. He will most likely reveal details at Thursday’s post Cabinet media briefing. The team which visited Cuba comprised the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary and Human Resources Manager, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Nursing Officer. Asked about the interest expressed by Cuban health care workers to come to Trinidad, Imbert said there was great interest.

He said a preliminary report he received from the team showed that at least 80 health professionals, including doctors and nurses, have already been identified as suitable candidates for jobs in Trinidad and Tobago. He said the 80 persons were chosen from a batch of 125 interviewed by the team last Wednesday and Thursday. The prospective Trinidadian employees were made available to the Ministry’s team by Cuban authorities. The Minister who had accompanied the team, but returned home earlier in the week, said while in Cuba they visited several health facilities and spoke to “top people” involved in training and health care delivery. He said he was very impressed by the standard of care delivered and training received by doctors.

Imbert said he was told that the Cuban government was in the business of training health professionals to assist other countries. He said there are 67,000 doctors in Cuba. Three thousand doctors are “produced” annually with over 5000 doctors working in foreign countries.  The search for medical professionals to work in Trinidad stemmed from the one month protest by doctors earlier this year. The protest was as a result of local doctors call for higher compensation packages. That protest resulted in a crippling of  the nation’s hospitals. Imbert was accused of “micro managing” because of his intervention and eventually the doctors were forced back to work by an injunction obtained by the Ministry of Labour.

Coincidentally, it is anticipated that doctors will embark on full scale protest action from today as a result of a breakdown in negotiations for higher compensation packages. The negotiations were between the doctors and the Regional Health Authorities (RHA’s). The deadline for the completion of negotiations was last Friday.  Imbert said he will not intervene this time unless the action is prolonged and the Ministry’s resources are needed. He directed all questions concerning the status of the negotiations to the CEOs of the RHAs. The RHAs are offering 15 percent increase to first year house officers, 17 percent for those with two years’ and 21 percent to those with three or more years service.