Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan has joined the call for doctors, parents and guardians to report teen/rape pregnancies.Education Minister Tim Gopeesingh recently said T&T had a rate of 2,500 teen pregnancies annually with many fathers, aged 25 to 40, suggesting many men were getting away with statutory rape.After calls for medical institutes and parents to report such situations, Khan backed the call at yesterday's post-Cabinet media briefing, saying he had to act as Health Minister and not as a doctor.He said the law was on the side of ensuring such issues were reported and contained specific guidance on it.Asked why doctors were not reporting rapes, Khan said he could only speculate and would not want to.
On the issue on the cocaine pellets recently found inside a man who had surgery done at a private hospital to remove them, Khan said he had not looked at that yet but would be checking his legal team on what action could obtained in that regard where the institution/practitioners were concerned. He said there was a grey area.Khan also announced Tobagonians would no longer have to come to Trinidad to get cardiac treatment since Tobago's new Scarborough hospital would be outfitted by next month with a $66 million MRI and cardiac catheterisation lab.He said that would help detect heart issues and facilitate angiograms and angioplasties. The cardiac lab would be attached to the hospital's ICU unit while the MRI unit would be in the hospital's west wing, he added.
Currently people who require cardiac treatment had to come to Trinidad. He said the two units should also assist Tobago's tourism sector where care for elderly tourists was concerned.
Khan also said Phoenix Park Gas Processors also have donated a $60 million cyclotron and positron emission tomography (PET) unit to the National Oncology Centre which was expected to be completed by April-May 2015.He said the president of PPGP recently offered to donate the units for the company's 20th anniversary.Currently, he said, MRIS could only detect cancer areas but the two new units would be able to tell if the masses were active or were merely residual and would be able to prevent the need for surgery.He said there were no such units in the region and the devices were two wonderful gifts.Khan also said the health card initiative would be launched by the end of next month, with the first phase applying to CDAP, HIV and cancer drugs.Asked if he supported rights for gay people, he said Section Four of the Constitution ensured rights for all T&T citizens.