Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­am­in­ing the lat­est is­sue which has hit her ad­min­is­tra­tion con­cern­ing Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan's de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue work­ing in pri­vate prac­tice.Op­po­si­tion MPs have called on Khan to re­sign for con­flict of in­ter­est and vi­o­la­tion of the In­tegri­ty Act-or be made to choose.Khan in­sist­ed Sat­ur­day that he was not pre­pared to aban­don his pa­tients and was pre­pared to deal with the reper­cus­sions fol­low­ing his de­ci­sion to jug­gle both jobs. He at­trib­uted the "out­ing" of his sit­u­a­tion to jeal­ousy.How­ev­er, Khan ad­mit­ted he had not in­formed the Prime Min­is­ter he was still see­ing pa­tients, adding that he thought she should have been told.

For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan yes­ter­day con­firmed the Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion on the Khan is­sue. He said: "A mat­ter like that will en­gage the at­ten­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter. I'm sure in due course a full state­ment will be made."Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har al­so said it was a mat­ter for the Prime Min­is­ter. To­ba­go East MP Dr Del­mon Bak­er, who is a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Fi­nance, said while pa­tients con­tin­ue to come to see him, he "does not treat" them. Bak­er said he refers them to oth­er doc­tors."At this stage I wouldn't say I treat peo­ple. I re­fer them to oth­er doc­tors. I don' t make house calls."

The Op­po­si­tion PNM said Khan is def­i­nite­ly in con­flict of in­ter­est and has to re­sign. Dr Amery Browne, a med­ical doc­tor by pro­fes­sion said the is­sue shows the Prime Min­is­ter's "poor lead­er­ship.""Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion one month ago to ap­point Dr. Khan has giv­en us a Health Min­is­ter who is en­gaged in paid em­ploy­ment with­in the very in­dus­try that he is man­dat­ed to over­see. "The Prime Min­is­ter has clear­ly lost con­trol of her regime and Min­is­ters seem to be free to set their own stan­dards of con­duct in of­fice. The Warn­er scan­dal was bad enough in high­light­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's in­de­ci­sive­ness.

Browne added: "It is im­pos­si­ble to be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter was un­aware Khan has been en­gaged in pri­vate prac­tice while serv­ing as deputy speak­er of the Low­er House for the last 14 months."This be­ing the case, a rea­son­able leader would then have con­sid­ered the con­flict of in­ter­est that aris­es if such a per­son is then ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter of Health. What hap­pens if a pa­tient dies on the ta­ble or if the pri­vate hos­pi­tal at which he prac­tices is ac­cused of wrong­do­ing?" PNM's Colm Im­bert said Khan was def­i­nite­ly in con­flict of in­ter­est un­der Sec­tion 27 of the In­tegri­ty Act. But Im­bert did not feel Khan need­ed to re­sign.

He said: "If Khan wants to con­tin­ue be­ing min­is­ter he should give up his pri­vate prac­tice. As dif­fi­cult as it may be, he should hand over his pa­tients to an­oth­er doc­tor. I don't think he should be see­ing pa­tients. The case of Jack Warn­er stay­ing in FI­FA and be­ing Works Min­is­ter was com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent since FI­FA is not a Gov­ern­ment de­part­ment."Im­bert added: "As Health Min­is­ter, every­thing you do dai­ly has to do with the health sec­tor ob­vi­ous­ly. He has to be im­par­tial and there's no way he could be con­sid­ered such if he's work­ing at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal."

Khan's jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Sun­day Guardian

"She (PM) does not know. I did not want to tell her for her to have that ex­tra ad­di­tion­al stress."Some­times some­body has to do some­thing to change some­thing. I have not com­pro­mised the Min­istry of Health; I have not com­pro­mised the time and I have not com­pro­mised my pa­tients. At the end of the day, I am not do­ing any­thing that is il­le­gal in this coun­try.

"The trend and his­to­ry is that every­body says you are not sup­posed to do this and that. Where is it writ­ten? If you want to do that, make it a law," the Health Min­is­ter stat­ed. At the end of the day, I am not go­ing to aban­don my pa­tients be­cause they are the ones who I have been treat­ing with on­go­ing prob­lems. There are very few urol­o­gists in the coun­try. If you are a sur­geon peo­ple come to you be­cause they be­lieve in you. I have tried to pass them off but they do not want to go any­where. They have asked me to do it on week­ends."