Jensen La Vende

From to­mor­row, doc­tors at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH) will be treat­ing with emer­gency cas­es on­ly if they are not giv­en some as­sur­ances that mea­sures will be put in place to en­sure their safe­ty.

The call came yes­ter­day af­ter an in­tern doc­tor was ac­cost­ed and robbed in the hos­pi­tal's carpark af­ter com­plet­ing her tour of du­ty just af­ter mid­night.

Mak­ing the re­quest was the North West Doc­tors' As­so­ci­a­tion (NW­DA) with the full back­ing of sup­port­ing staff from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es' As­so­ci­a­tion. The doc­tors said they would be forced to take ac­tion to en­sure their safe­ty dur­ing the con­duct of their du­ty. The NW­DA said the in­tern was robbed of $300 but giv­en what tran­spired it could have been worse.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the in­tern left for home around mid­night and was walk­ing to­wards her car parked in a poor­ly lit area at the back of the hos­pi­tal. On her way there a man pre­tend­ed to be lost and asked for di­rec­tions to the In­ten­sive Care Unit.

The in­tern es­cort­ed the man, who was de­scribed as Afro-Tri­ni, with yel­low eyes and wear­ing a white T-shirt, to ICU. How­ev­er, as she at­tempt­ed to leave the man pulled out a gun and or­dered her to a se­clud­ed area in the car park where she was robbed.

The in­tern, her col­leagues said, was made to walk past four va­cant guard booths from ICU to where she was robbed near the Blood Bank, north of the ma­ter­ni­ty ward.

The as­so­ci­a­tion added that most re­cent in­ci­dent broke the camel's back, not­ing that there had been oth­er in­stances where doc­tors were threat­ened at gun­point by pa­tients, or nurs­es were sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed by pa­tients and when com­plaints were made to the se­cu­ri­ty they were told the of­fi­cers were there to guard prop­er­ty and not peo­ple.

"Look at how far this girl walked, look at how many check­points she passed through with­out even a se­cu­ri­ty guard present. The North West Doc­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, which is rep­re­sent­ing the needs of the doc­tors, have de­mand­ed that a po­lice post be placed at the PoS­GH with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

"We were promised this since the prison break (last year) but noth­ing has been done since. The se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies em­ployed here, we have no con­fi­dence in them at all," mem­bers of the NW­DA ex­ec­u­tive told the me­dia fol­low­ing a meet­ing.

The as­so­ci­a­tion called on the se­cu­ri­ty firms–Heller Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices and Se­cu­ri­ty Analy­sis Ser­vices (SAS)–to be fired and a new com­pa­ny grant­ed the con­tract to se­cure both the premis­es and the peo­ple on it. They are al­so call­ing for se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras and prop­er light­ing sur­round­ing the hos­pi­tal.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Shel­don Cyrus, said he would meet with the NW­DA to­day to hear their con­cerns but could not yet say what would be done to al­lay their fears. On the com­plaints about the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, Cyrus said the claims were not true as the board would not hire a com­pa­ny to pro­tect prop­er­ty and dis­re­gard the lives of peo­ple.

TTR­NA vice-chair­man Kerne Ram­nath said yes­ter­day his mem­ber­ship would sup­port any ac­tion by the doc­tors, not­ing his mem­ber­ship had al­so been told by se­cu­ri­ty guards that their role was to se­cure prop­er­ty and not peo­ple.

One nurse at Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day re­called a case when a pa­tient threat­ened her. She said she lodged a com­plaint with the se­cu­ri­ty but was told they could not touch the pa­tients. She was forced to re­port the mat­ter to the po­lice.

"We will sup­port the doc­tors be­cause we have been hav­ing is­sues re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty who are not en­gaged in pro­tect­ing and serv­ing.

"Is years now re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties con­tin­ue to have is­sues re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty. There have been break-ins and rob­beries on the com­pound and where se­cu­ri­ty? The peo­ple who serve the pub­lic with all their heart are the ones suf­fer­ing," Ram­nath said.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh, mean­while, told the T&T Guardian he had or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.