Gail Alexan­der

A for­mer col­league of Gen­der Af­fairs Min­istry em­ploy­ee Cheryl Miller yes­ter­day broke down and cried out­side the Par­lia­ment, protest­ing against the way Miller was tak­en away from her job to the St Ann's Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal. Cather­ine Mitchell, a re­tired em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Gen­der Af­fairs, was among a group of Miller's col­leagues who staged a protest at noon out­side Par­lia­ment against the treat­ment of Miller.

Miller was re­port­ed­ly tak­en away from her of­fice by men­tal health work­ers and com­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal two weeks ago. She re­mains at the in­sti­tu­tion. Miller's fam­i­ly has called for an­swers on the sit­u­a­tion af­ter re­ports that Miller had had an "out­burst" with a se­nior min­istry of­fi­cial af­ter Miller com­plained of be­ing un­fair­ly tar­get­ed.

Miller's dis­traught col­league Mitchell and oth­ers from Gen­der Af­fairs and oth­er min­istries, in­clud­ing Sport, where Miller had pre­vi­ous­ly worked, made their views known via plac­ards and oth­er state­ments yes­ter­day. Mitchell, sit­ting on one of the Par­lia­ment bor­ders, held her head in her hands and cried at length.

Mitchell said she had worked with Miller at the Sport Min­istry for al­most ten years. "That girl Cheryl touched my heart," Mitchell sobbed as she was con­soled by an­oth­er col­league. An­tho­ny For­tune, an­oth­er min­istry em­ploy­ee, said oth­er min­istry work­ers were now wor­ried about what they can do to save them­selves.

For­tune said, "If there was some kind of se­nior peo­ple here, and se­nior peo­ple at St Ann's by­pass all the le­gal pro­to­col to ad­mit Cheryl Miller to the St Ann's Hos­pi­tal, these peo­ple must be aware their jobs are in dan­ger." For­tune added, "We're al­so con­cerned about Cheryl's wel­fare in St Ann's. They need to get her out of there be­fore the drugs they are giv­ing her by force dam­age her. We don't know what kind of drugs they're ad­min­is­ter­ing to her."

Alver­na Cameron, who said she was Miller's su­per­vi­sor at the Sport Min­istry for two years at one time, added, "You have to do things ac­cord­ing to pro­to­col and the cor­rect pro­ce­dure, and the pro­ce­dure was not fol­lowed." Cameron said she was con­tin­u­ing to work at her min­istry in the nor­mal way, but she felt Miller's col­leagues at oth­er min­istries, in­clud­ing Gen­der Af­fairs, should take stronger ac­tion.

On Tues­day, Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, re­spond­ing to a note from the T&T Guardian dur­ing the Sen­ate sit­ting, said she would in­ves­ti­gate, since it was her min­istry.