Yvonne Webb

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is now at the Wal­ter Reed Hos­pi­tal in Wash­ing­ton where he will un­der­go four to six weeks of ther­a­py fol­low­ing the stroke he suf­fered on Jan­u­ary 23. Man­ning, 65, ac­com­pa­nied by his wife, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning and a med­ical team, left T&T by air am­bu­lance ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing. This was con­firmed by his sis­ter, Dr Petronel­la Man­ning-Al­leyne, dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy of­fice yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. The trip was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion which ap­proved US$91,000 to pay for the air am­bu­lance ser­vice.

The Op­po­si­tion MP al­so has been grant­ed three months leave from Par­lia­ment. Man­ning-Al­leyne, a med­ical doc­tor, de­nied her broth­er was sent abroad for treat­ment be­cause his con­di­tion had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. She said: "This morn­ing (Mon­day), Mr Man­ning did very well, in terms of man­age­ment of the acute event. We have now em­barked on the man­age­ment of his nor­mal func­tion. "As a re­sult, he was air­lift­ed this morn­ing by air am­bu­lance to a hos­pi­tal in Wash­ing­ton, a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre, where we an­tic­i­pate, in the first in­stance, he will re­main for about four to six weeks.

"Dur­ing his stay at the SFGH, his re­turn to func­tion oc­curred at a rate that sort of de­fied all odds and we are hope­ful he will have a pos­i­tive out­come in the short­est pos­si­ble time." Man­ning-Al­leyne said her broth­er went abroad for fur­ther treat­ment be­cause what is of­fered at the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre was far su­pe­ri­or to what was avail­able lo­cal­ly. She added: "We have not yet achieved Vi­sion 20/20. We are not first world and even though we have the ser­vices here, there is no ques­tion that where he has gone, the ser­vices are far su­pe­ri­or to what we can of­fer." Man­ning's sons, Bri­an and David, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, thanked Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the staff at the SFGH for their sup­port and prayers. (YW)