Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh claims Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed pub­lic of­fi­cials to hide flu mor­tal­i­ty sta­tis­tics for the pe­ri­od 2013-2015.

Speak­ing at a PNM pub­lic meet­ing at the Ex­o­dus pan yard in Tu­na­puna last night, the min­is­ter said he has al­ways been trans­par­ent about the flu death sta­tis­tics. He said be­tween 2015 and 2017 there were no deaths, there were eight last year and the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) had pre­vi­ous­ly said there were three deaths so far this year.

Deyals­ingh said while the Op­po­si­tion has tak­en to so­cial me­dia via its on­line trolls to ac­cuse him of sup­press­ing da­ta, he has ev­i­dence that the UNC hid that in­for­ma­tion while it was in gov­ern­ment. He said the da­ta is un­avail­able.

The min­is­ter said on Fri­day, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh will be tabling a pri­vate mo­tion to the Low­er House to dis­cuss the H1N1 virus in this coun­try. He said while the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Bridgid An­nis­sette-George might not give leave for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to de­bate the mo­tion, he will be send­ing his find­ings on the un­avail­able da­ta to the me­dia.