Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Twen­ty-four hours be­fore the daugh­ter-in-law of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards was set to take up her ap­point­ment as the act­ing Di­rec­tor of Health at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) she was re­ject­ed. Sun­day Guardian learnt that ef­fec­tive April 12, Ab­dool-Richards was ex­pect­ed to as­sume all the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Di­rec­tor of Health in the ab­sence of Dr Rod­ney Ram­roop who was on va­ca­tion leave.

How­ev­er, Ab­dool-Richards was blanked from act­ing in the po­si­tion that was left va­cant for the three-week pe­ri­od. Richards is the Clus­ter Leader of the Ari­ma Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty and is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the man­age­ment of sev­en pri­ma­ry health care fa­cil­i­ties in the coun­ty of St George East. The in­sti­tu­tion is the sec­ond largest fa­cil­i­ty that falls un­der the NCRHA.

A copy of the memo that was sent to all clin­i­cal heads of de­part­ments and ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian stat­ed: "Please be ad­vised that I will be pro­ceed­ing on va­ca­tion leave from April 12 to May 7, 2012. Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards will as­sume all the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of Di­rec­tor of Health in my ab­sence. Please ex­tend your usu­al cour­te­sies and sup­port to her dur­ing this pe­ri­od."

The let­ter was signed by Ram­roop and copied to act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Collin Bisses­sar, act­ing hu­man re­source man­age­ment con­sul­tant Kaw­al Singh, and to Ab­dool-Richards. Tele­phone calls to Singh and Bisses­sar were unan­swered. Sources told Sun­day Guardian that in­struc­tions were giv­en at the last minute to re­verse the de­ci­sion.

It was the hu­man re­source de­part­ment that in­formed Ab­dool-Richards on April 10 that the act­ing ap­point­ment was be­ing re­viewed. "The in­struc­tions were that she (Ab­dool-Richards) was per­ceived to be af­fil­i­at­ed with the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion and should not be al­lowed to act," the in­sid­er re­vealed. As to who gave the in­struc­tions? The ques­tion re­mains unan­swered. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day Ab­dool-Richards de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter.

Khan: Her per­for­mance is ex­cel­lent

But Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan yes­ter­day con­firmed to Sun­day Guardian that he was aware of the sit­u­a­tion. Khan said he asked the ad­min­is­tra­tion to con­sid­er al­low­ing Ab­dool-Richards to act in the po­si­tion due to her per­for­mance. "Dr Ab­dool-Richards was rec­om­mend­ed to act in the po­si­tion and I asked that she was con­sid­ered. I was in­formed that she was not ready for the po­si­tion.

"She is ex­cel­lent at pri­ma­ry health care and is run­ning the Ari­ma fa­cil­i­ty and the sur­round­ing cen­tres very well. "I have asked for them to look at her work and put her in charge of the pri­ma­ry health care process in the dis­trict be­cause her per­for­mance is ex­cel­lent." Khan said he was al­so told that spe­cial­ists at the fa­cil­i­ty would not ad­here to her di­rec­tives.

"I did not give a di­rec­tive be­cause no min­is­ter can do that. I asked for them to con­sid­er her act­ing while Dr Ram­roop was away and she was not con­sid­ered," Khan said. Checks on Ab­dool-Richards' Face­book pro­file re­vealed she is the hold­er of the fol­low­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions:

• Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Med­i­cine

• Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Surgery

• Mas­ter of Sci­ence-Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine

• Mas­ter of Sci­ence-Pub­lic Health in De­vel­op­ing Coun­tries

Mean­while, Sun­day Guardian fur­ther learnt that the mount­ing pres­sure against Ab­dool-Richards be­gun since last year. Ab­dool-Richards was al­so by­passed for a Pri­or­i­ty Buss Route (PBR) pass al­though ap­proval was grant­ed. "It is un­for­tu­nate, but she has been brand­ed a PNM be­cause of her name," the in­sid­er re­vealed. For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had cho­sen His Ex­cel­len­cy George Maxwell Richards at the na­tion's fourth pres­i­dent of T&T.