Kevon Felmine

Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Prakash Ra­mad­har may have to step down from the com­mit­tee set-up to in­ves­ti­gate the sack­ing of for­mer CEO of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) Paula Chester-Cum­ber­batch.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that to the me­dia at the Pow­er­gen Spe­cial Chil­dren's fun day.She said Ra­mad­har may be re­lat­ed to Chrys­tal Boodoo-Ram­soomair who died as a re­sult of a Cae­sare­an sec­tion per­formed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Chester-Cum­ber­batch was fired af­ter she failed to pro­duce sus­pen­sion let­ters to the doc­tors and nurs­es who were in­volved in the pro­ce­dure.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "We may have to ask Mr Prakash Ra­mad­har not to sit on the com­mit­tee be­cause I have since been ad­vised he may be re­lat­ed to the de­ceased moth­er."She said the mat­ter would be dis­cussed to­day in Cab­i­net and the com­po­si­tion of the com­mit­tee may be al­tered.The in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee was set up to deal with the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tion mat­ters con­cern­ing the sus­pen­sions at the SWRHA.The Prime Min­is­ter ad­dressed is­sues re­gard­ing the pa­tient's rights and the griev­ance of the doc­tors and nurs­es.

She said: "I have every in­ten­tion of en­sur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are car­ried out ac­cord­ing to law. In­deed, the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Act has a griev­ance pro­ce­dure and it is fixed with­in the law, what is to be done by the em­ploy­er, which in this case is the SWRHA. "The in­ter­min­is­te­r­i­al team is to deal with the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters."A team of min­is­ters was sched­uled to meet with the doc­tors and nurs­es to have all the facts gath­ered, she said.Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "From this we will be bet­ter able to read the sit­u­a­tion and deal with the griev­ances of the doc­tor and nurs­es."I in­tend to meet with some of them my­self. This is a se­ri­ous mat­ter for us to have re­solved as soon as pos­si­ble."She stood by the ap­point­ment of CEO of SWRHA Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe to the head an­oth­er com­mit­tee on the death of in­fants at the hos­pi­tal.

She said Dr Bo­doe sat on a dif­fer­ent com­mit­tee which was set up to in­ves­ti­gate the high in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rate in hos­pi­tals."Giv­en the high in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rate in or hos­pi­tals, as I said be­fore, and I re­peat, oth­er coun­tries in the Caribbean who are not as far for­ward as we are, their in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rates are much low­er."The com­mit­tee, chaired by Dr Bo­doe, is to look in­to how we can bring down our very high in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rate."The Prime Min­is­ter al­so took the time to chat with the chil­dren, who were quite ex­cit­ed to see her. She was ho­n­oured with a por­trait of her­self by Chaitram Ramjits­ingh, chair­man of the Pow­er­gen Sports Club. Chair­man of Pow­er­gen, In­dar­jit Singh, al­so pre­sent­ed her with a $100,000 cheque to­wards the Prime Min­is­ter Chil­dren's Life Fund.