Imbert: Tissue transplant in TT by December 31

HEALTH MINISTER Colm Imbert yesterday disclosed that all the mechanisms will be in place by December 31 for tissue transplant procedures to be undertaken in Trinidad and Tobago. The Minister told Newsday that when Parliament resumes next month, legislation to effect the necessary regulations attached to the Human Tissue Transplant Act 2000 will be laid, and he is optimistic that Parliament will approve that legislation either by the end of September or early October. He expressed optimism that all the necessary groundwork would be completed by year’s end to allow persons requiring tissue transplants to have the procedures done locally. On July 4, the Minister indicated that he had seen the final version of the legislation and that legislation would be brought to Parliament very soon.

Imbert described comments from former Junior Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan and others that the Ministry was doing nothing regarding tissue transplant legislation as unfair and misleading. He said Khan was trying to cover up his and the UNC’s incompetence in passing this legislation while the UNC was in government.  “Just last week, I approved regulations concerning brain-stem death. All the conditions and regulations are being sorted out,” Imbert disclosed. Khan told Newsday on Sunday that the Act was passed in 2001 but the attached regulations were never approved by Parliament due to general elections in December of that year. “They (UNC) had one year (2000) to bring that legislation to Parliament and five years before that to draft it,” Imbert declared.

The Minister rejected Khan’s statement about the Trinidad Public Health Laboratory (TPHL) not being the only authorised lab to release test results on a “mystery virus” which caused several persons to be recently warded at the San Fernando General Hospital. Imbert said given Khan’s status as a qualified doctor and former minister, Khan “knows that private labs are unregulated and not authorised to give data” of the kind he (Khan) is alleging they can and the UNC MP was just politicking. He however confirmed Khan’s statement that the TPHL had been run down while the UNC was in office. “They left it in a mess. One of my projects is to revamp it. So many things that were wrong in health were being swept under the carpet,” Imbert declared. The Minister also revealed that a budget of $10 million has been approved to procure modern equipment for the TPHL in order to improve the quality of the tests done, its accuracy and the time taken to release the results.