Richard Lord

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is ad­vis­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take a rest. Warn­er's ad­vice was giv­en dur­ing his tour of St Joseph yes­ter­day with Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney. Hours ear­li­er, doc­tors at St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre al­so or­dered Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take a rest, for at least 24 hours. This, as she was forced to check in­to the hos­pi­tal af­ter com­plain­ing of feel­ing un­well ear­ly yes­ter­day. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh said Per­sad-Bisses­sar woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing feel­ing dizzy and ex­haust­ed. She was tak­en to the fa­cil­i­ty at around 10 am af­ter at­tend­ing a con­fer­ence host­ed by the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (Am Cham) at the Hy­att Re­gency, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Her right foot was swollen and she was seen wear­ing a pair of slip­pers at the Health, Safe­ty, Se­cu­ri­ty and the En­vi­ron­ment Con­fer­ence. Gopeesingh said a can fell on the Prime Min­is­ter's right foot about one week ago and caused a swelling of the foot yes­ter­day. "She was dizzy and her right foot was swollen," he added. Gopeesingh said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ex­pe­ri­enced some dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing yes­ter­day. She then left for med­ical at­ten­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was un­able to keep an of­fi­cial en­gage­ment at Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre at a func­tion host­ed by BGTT. En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine deputised for her at that event.

The PM al­so was un­able to chair yes­ter­day's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing, which was to re­view the hours of the cur­few, which re­mains from 11 pm to 4 am. At St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre, she was vis­it­ed by sev­er­al min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­istry, Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's hus­band, Gre­go­ry, who had triple by­pass surgery at the same fa­cil­i­ty ear­li­er this year al­so vist­ed. Short­ly be­fore lunchtime yes­ter­day, a state­ment was is­sued from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter con­firm­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar "is present­ly un­der­go­ing med­ical as­sess­ment, ex­am­i­na­tions and eval­u­a­tion at St Clair Med­ical, fol­low­ing com­plaints of feel­ing un­well this morn­ing.

"She is rest­ing com­fort­ably. Fur­ther up­dates will be pro­vid­ed lat­er to­day." Warn­er, who has act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing her ab­sence from T&T, said: "My ad­vice to the Prime Min­is­ter is that she should take a rest. No­body can do what she has been do­ing for the coun­try and she must take a rest." Warn­er said she must take a rest "de­spite what her crit­ics may say about her." He said she re­mained a very com­mit­ted work­er and Prime Min­is­ter for the peo­ple of T&T. Short­ly be­fore 3 pm yes­ter­day, a rel­a­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter was seen tak­ing a suit­case with her per­son­al be­long­ings in­to the hos­pi­tal. Min­utes lat­er, the PM's ve­hi­cle and her se­cu­ri­ty de­tail left the hos­pi­tal com­pound.

Gopeesingh said lat­er the Prime Min­is­ter would be mon­i­tored over a 24-hour pe­ri­od. He in­sist­ed her ill­ness had noth­ing to do with any at­tack of dengue fever. Two months ago, she was or­dered to take bed rest af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with dengue fever. Gopeesingh and Baksh, af­ter vis­it­ing the PM, said she was in good spir­its. Baksh said: "They gave her a 24-hour rest pe­ri­od and she is com­fort­able." Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not ex­pect­ed to at­tend to­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing. On Sun­day, her grand­son, Kris­tiano Bisses­sar, was treat­ed for dengue at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He was dis­charged on Tues­day. Some oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern about the work­load of the Prime Min­is­ter, say­ing it must be very de­mand­ing and stress­ful.