The mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal does not have a func­tion­ing In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) and is op­er­at­ing with staff short­ages. At a meet­ing of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee yes­ter­day at Par­lia­ment the Med­ical Chief of Staff at the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Dr Nathaniel Duke, said there is no car­di­ol­o­gist and no op­er­at­ing ICU at the hos­pi­tal and neu­ro­surgery can­not be per­formed.

Duke said the TRHA was look­ing at a na­tion­al now em­ployed in Eng­land to per­form that func­tion. He said there are nine pa­tients at the hos­pi­tal be­ing treat­ed for heart-re­lat­ed ill­ness and the chron­ic cas­es were sent to Trinidad for at­ten­tion. He ad­mit­ted the THRA was fac­ing many staffing chal­lenges, es­pe­cial­ly for the ICU de­part­ment.

"We have dif­fi­cul­ties and chal­lenges with re­cruit­ing that com­ple­ment of staff," Duke said. Even though the ICU is not func­tion­al, a pa­tient re­quir­ing a high lev­el of sup­port can ac­cess the re­quired ser­vice in Trinidad, he said.