Rahael: Things moving apace in health sector

THINGS are moving apace within the Health Ministry and Health Minister John Rahael is optimistic that come 2004, many of the Ministry’s initiatives to deliver quality health care to the population will begin to bear fruit.  Rahael replaced Colm Imbert as Health Minister when Prime Minister Patrick Manning announced a Cabinet reshuffle on November 7. Rahael told Newsday that during the six weeks that he has been Health Minister, he has been working assiduously to ensure that much of the work which started under Imbert will be completed. The Minister revealed that one of the achievements within his brief tenure is the obtaining of a loan and establishment of a letter of credit for certain diagnostic machines which are in short supply at the nation’s major hospitals. Rahael said the first batch of these machines (which includes x-ray and CT scanners) will arrive in Trinidad and Tobago in mid-January.

He said the Patients Care Assistance Programme was initiated with 500 trained caregivers being deployed to the various Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) and open heart surgery was performed on ten “indigent (poor)” persons. The Minister added that these operations were done “free of charge” to the patients and additional open heart procedures for needy persons are being scheduled for the new year. Rahael also said come January 10, the Ministry will be placing special emphasis on cataract surgeries for children. He said all health care stakeholders must “put their shoulders to the wheel” to ensure the delivery of proper health care to the entire population. Rahael reiterated that politics must be kept out of health and lamented there were still some who believed otherwise.

On the Public Services Association’s (PSA) offer of assistance to any Cuban or United Nations doctor who is impeded in the performance of their duties, the Minister said he was not aware of mechanisms to implement that offer but welcomed the PSA taking “a proactive role in the delivery of health care.” Rahael said he recently had a cordial meeting with PSA president Jennifer Baptiste-Primus and the PSA is fully aware of the role it has to play within the health sector. Rahael also said he will be looking closely at proposed legislation pertaining to the Health Services Quality Act and Tissue Transplant legislation. Speaking in Parliament on November 11,  Rahael said the Health Services Quality Act “will cover all health care providers” and ensure that all health institutions in TT meet the minimum standards prescribed by the Act.

In a Newsday interview in August, then Health Minister Imbert said legislation to effect the necessary regulations attached to the Human Tissue Transplant Act 2000 would be laid in Parliament in September and he was optimistic that the legislation would have been approved either by the end of September or early October. Imbert had said once that happened, the way would be clear for tissue transplant procedures to be performed locally by December 31.