Rahael, Rafeeq in tit-for-tat over RHAs

As UNC MP Hamza Rafeeq threw out allegations of corruption yesterday, Health Minister John Rahael caught the ball and bowled it right back at him. Both men were speaking in the debate on a motion filed by Rafeeq, seeking to have the Regional Health Authority Amendment Order 2004 reversed. The Order seeks to split the North-West Regional Health Authority into two separate RHAs — the North West Regional Health Authority and the North Central Regional Health Authority. Rafeeq questioned the legal status of all contracts entered into by the NWRHA over the last two months, suggesting that it ceased to exist as a legal entity from August 13, when the Order was published. Rafeeq also argued that the NWRHA merely needed proper management and was not too large an administrative unit to deliver quality health care. However, Rahael charged that the merger of the NWRHA and the NCRHA by the UNC in 2000 was merely to create  a bigger empire for then NWRHA chairman, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, “who claimed that he had the ear of the then prime minister and who was actually running the ministry.”

Rahael said several contracts which had questionable terms were given out by Rafeeq and then chairman of the Regional Health Authority, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, without tender in 2000. That statement brought Rafeeq to his feet as he objected, saying that he (as minister) did not give out any contracts. Rahael said a contract was given out without tender to a company to put in a CT scan in the Port-of-Spain General Hospital in 2000. That company was a joint venture between the NWRHA and a private company, HTI Ltd, he explained. “The NWRHA  provided the space, electricity, water and other infrastructure while the private company was allowed to charge patients between $1,200 and $1,900 for a CT scan,” Rahael said. Furthermore, the company had exclusive rights to have a CT scan in the hospital. “No other institution or authority, not even the NWRHA or the Ministry of Health can now put a CT scan in PoS or within a three mile radius.

Here it is that we are making available to patients CT scans at no cost at other public health institutions, but at PoS General Hospital we cannot provide it. Why? Because the UNC, under the watchful eye of the member for Caroni Central, gave the exclusive right to HTI. And in addition, they pay that company $500,000,” the Health Minister charged. Rahael said for all that, the hospital is entitled to two free CT scans per day. “This is one of the many problems we were faced with,” the minister stated, adding that this contract is for five years. Rahael said another contract was awarded which raised many questions. This one was  to a company called Optimum Energy Technology Company for the supply of oxygen. He said the UNC government changed the suppliers, Industrial Gas Ltd, which used to provide oxygen to Mount Hope for $30,000 a year and gave the new contract to OET for $99,000, “three times more.” Noting the OET was formed three months before the contract went to tender, Rahael said Government has been trying hard to get out of this contract, which is for ten years.

However, he stressed, every legal authority said it was so “air-tight and iron-clad” that there was no way to break it. Rahael said the PNM Government had, by contrast, put out for international tender the contracts for the supply of CT scans and MRI and other equipment for the hospitals. He said there was now an MRI machine for the first time in the public sector and patients who used to pay up to $5,000 for an MRI, can now be referred to Mount Hope for an MRI at no cost. Rahael also knocked Rafeeq for the merger of the NWRHA and NCRHA, saying that it was a “prescription for disaster.” He said the NWRHA had been plagued by serious mismanagement and industrial difficulties since the move. He said when the merger was instituted, no audit was done on the liabilities of the NCRHA and, up to today, the ministry was unable to identify these liabilities. He said the ministry was hoping to do this by the end of the year. Earlier, Rafeeq said Rahael had given no cogent reason for splitting up the NWRHA into two bodies.

Poor management, incompetence, corruption and a lack of leadership both at the level of the RHA and the Ministry of Health were the main reasons for the “massive chaos in the health sector,” not the size of the RHA, he contended. Rafeeq said the NWRHA Board, which couldn’t pay its utility bills, (leading to a $50 million debt) and which couldn’t pay the Board of Inland Revenue the $108 million owed, could nevertheless afford to spend $180,000 on entertainment. He added that the NWRHA knew its wage bill was high, but continued to employ a cadre of persons to do dubious jobs for political purposes. And when the Joint Select Committee of Parliament questioned the NWRHA about its actions, the chairman had the audacity to write to the committee demanding an apology, Rafeeq stated. Rafeeq said when the NWRHA couldn’t pay the Board of Inland Revenue and its public bills, it said it used the money to hire staff. He said the staff which was hired were Cuban and UNV doctors, which are paid from a separate vote of the Ministry of Health, not the RHA.