Shas­tri Boodan

Deputy May­or of Ch­agua­nas Or­lan­do Nages­sar is fum­ing over the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to re­lo­cate the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre in­to a heav­i­ly-con­gest­ed part of the busy cen­tral bor­ough. Nages­sar took the T&T Guardian on a tour of the area on Wednes­day to high­light what he called, "an­oth­er dotish de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment." He said he want­ed to know why the Min­istry of Health would re­lo­cate the fa­cil­i­ty "from a cramped lo­ca­tion to one that is worse." Nages­sar said it was now eas­i­er to reach a near­by fu­ner­al home than to get health­care. "Who is the own­er of this build­ing? I hear the Gov­ern­ment is cough­ing up $250,000 a month in rent. Why was this fa­cil­i­ty put here? he asked. The peo­ple of Fe­lic­i­ty, Ko­rea Vil­lage, Chase Vil­lage, Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage, Boot Hill, Pe­ter's Field, Char­lieville and en­vi­rons will find it ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate through the heavy traf­fic to get help.

ABOVE: ?Nages­sar points out an aban­doned build­ing at Wood­ford Lodge that could have been ren­o­vat­ed. Pho­tos: Shas­tri Boodan

"They might die in the process and may end up go­ing by the near­by Dass Fu­ner­al Par­lour to await bur­ial. This fa­cil­i­ty will bet­ter ben­e­fit peo­ple liv­ing in Ed­in­burgh 500, En­ter­prise, Longdev­ille and Lange Park." He said any health fa­cil­i­ty should be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to all burgess­es. "There is some lev­el of vis­i­ble dis­crim­i­na­tion when Gov­ern­ment took the de­ci­sion to move the health cen­tre here," Nages­sar said. He said in 2002, for­mer health min­is­ter John Ra­hael had iden­ti­fied and was about to turn the sod to start the con­struc­tion of a mod­ern hos­pi­tal in the Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road area. Nages­sar asked: "Why was this new fa­cil­i­ty nev­er built? At Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road every­one from all parts of the bor­ough would have got­ten easy ac­cess to treat­ment from a mod­ern health fa­cil­i­ty.

"Why is Ch­agua­nas be­ing treat­ed with con­tempt, why does the Gov­ern­ment hate the peo­ple of Cen­tral so much?" Nages­sar said the Gov­ern­ment could have cho­sen not to rent but in­stead save the tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars by ren­o­vat­ing fa­cil­i­ties at the old Wood­ford Lodge Sug­ar Fac­to­ry. He said: "There are sev­er­al good build­ing there that re­main aban­doned. When Ca­roni (1975) Ltd closed shop, a few build­ings were ren­o­vat­ed to ac­com­mo­date the URP and the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps. "To­day, those fa­cil­i­ties are well man­aged with easy ac­cess and am­ple park­ing. What was the de­ci­sion to rent that hor­ri­ble build­ing at Galt Street to house the Health Cen­tre? "Is this an­oth­er scan­dal like the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates' Court where an un­oc­cu­pied build­ing is be­ing rent­ed at tax­pay­ers' ex­pense?" he asked.