Richard Lord

Am­bas­sador des­ig­nate to Brus­sels, Bel­gium, and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN, Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, has said she served as health min­is­ter to the best of her abil­i­ty. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, a for­mer uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er, was re­lieved of her Cab­i­net po­si­tion in a re­align­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last month. She is now em­ployed in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis has ac­cept­ed the diplo­mat­ic post­ing and is ex­pect­ed to as­sume du­ties in a few weeks. She said she felt hap­py about her per­for­mance as min­is­ter of health from 2010 to 2011. She said she was ex­cit­ed about her new job and looked for­ward to play­ing a fur­ther role in ad­vanc­ing T&T on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said she would not like to com­ment on cer­tain is­sues af­fect­ing the health sec­tor be­cause there was a new min­is­ter in of­fice.

She said Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan might have had some prob­lems in the fu­ture if he were to con­tin­ue with his pri­vate med­ical prac­tice. He was forced to give it up af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was un­ten­able for him to per­form the two roles. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said T&T was now in tran­si­tion and the coun­try would over­come the chal­lenges it was fac­ing now. She said cit­i­zens should al­ways live in hope.