Yvonne Webb

A new act­ing CEO of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has been ap­point­ed amidst re­ports that the in­cum­bent, Anil Go­sine, has been sent on leave for two weeks ini­tial­ly.

Chair­man of the SWRHA board, Dr Alexan­der Sinanan, in a brief memo sent yes­ter­day to all gen­er­al man­agers, man­agers and heads of de­part­ment, con­firmed the ap­point­ment but not the sus­pen­sion.

"Please be ad­vised that with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, Mrs Gail Miller-Meade will be the (Ag) CEO of the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty un­til fur­ther no­tice. Kind­ly ex­tend all cour­te­sies to Mrs Gail Miller-Meade as she in­ter­acts with you in the per­for­mance of her du­ties."

Miller-Meade, who is a per­ma­nent SWRHA em­ploy­ee, is the sub­stan­tive fi­nance man­ag­er. There was no men­tion of Go­sine or any sus­pen­sion in the memo. How­ev­er, sources claim the de­ci­sion was tak­en dur­ing a meet­ing Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh had with at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel on Wednes­day morn­ing. Re­ports in­di­cate that the board called Go­sine in­to an emer­gency meet­ing some­time ago, af­ter views aired by some work­ers at­tached to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) on a week­end ra­dio pro­gramme.

Se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions were made by the work­ers, in­clud­ing one about a schol­ar­ship be­ing af­ford­ed to a rel­a­tive of an SWRHA of­fi­cial for study abroad. Sources said Go­sine, who has been in the po­si­tion since 2011, ac­tu­al­ly led the Sinanan-chaired board on a tour of the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency de­part­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a board meet­ing around 2 pm, Go­sine was re­port­ed­ly sent on leave. Se­cu­ri­ty was al­so alert­ed to es­cort him off the com­pound but he left be­fore that could hap­pen.

Ef­forts were made to reach Go­sine by tele­phone were un­suc­cess­ful last evening. Ac­cord­ing to the RHA reg­u­la­tions, the board may ter­mi­nate the ap­point­ment of a CEO by giv­ing him three months no­tice in writ­ing or pay­ing three months salary in lieu there­of.

Go­sine, an en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, who pre­vi­ous­ly served the SWRHA as gen­er­al man­ag­er, op­er­a­tions, was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion when the for­mer CEO Paula Chester Cum­ber­batch was fired in 2011, fol­low­ing the death of Crys­tal Ram­sumair Boodoo dur­ing a botched C-sec­tion at the SFGH.