Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on the na­tion to pray for for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning who was hos­pi­talised af­ter falling ill.

He made the call at the of­fi­cial open­ing yes­ter­day of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­er, one of the build­ings Man­ning had en­vi­sioned as part of a new city land­scape, on low­er St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

"I want to recog­nise for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning who at this mo­ment is not do­ing as well as he would like to and let us send him our best wish­es for hav­ing the vi­sion and for­ti­tude.

"I would like you, in your thoughts and prayers, to keep him in mind," Row­ley said.

The tow­er was opened a decade af­ter the Gov­ern­ment cam­pus was con­struct­ed un­der the Patrick Man­ning-regime.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 800 em­ploy­ees are ex­pect­ed to move in­to the build­ing to­day. (See Page A5)

Three years af­ter he suf­fered a stroke and a sub­se­quent seizure, Man­ning was ward­ed again at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Mon­day night af­ter falling weak from a low blood count.

He ar­rived at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment at around 7 pm and was kept overnight in a pri­vate room at the new wing of the hos­pi­tal and was not al­lowed any vis­i­tors ex­cept im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Anil Go­sine, con­firmed that Man­ning was hos­pi­talised but could of­fer no de­tails about his con­di­tion.

A post on his Face­book page by his wife, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning, stat­ed that he was ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tal for in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­cern­ing "an aber­ra­tion in his blood count."

She al­so wrote: "He is rest­ing com­fort­ably and is in good spir­its. We con­tin­ue to pray for him."

The post was shared 86 times and was viewed by 600-plus peo­ple who of­fered prayers to Man­ning and his fam­i­ly at that time.

One of his rel­a­tives at his San Fer­nan­do home ex­plained yes­ter­day that Man­ning, 69, had start­ed run­ning a fever fol­low­ing the re­moval of a wis­dom tooth last Fri­day.

"He is con­scious and rest­ing com­fort­ably. He is in good spir­its but we are very con­cerned. He is be­ing watched con­stant­ly by the doc­tors and med­ical staff. We con­tin­ue to pray for him," the rel­a­tive added.

A close friend of Man­ning said when he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal he had breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties.

An­oth­er source added he un­der­went den­tal surgery re­cent­ly and lost a good deal of blood.

"We are not sure whether his con­di­tion is re­lat­ed to that surgery but we are tak­ing no chances," the source said.

Man­ning, who was T&T's fourth prime min­is­ter and served three times and has been recog­nised as the longest serv­ing MP in T&T's his­to­ry, lost his abil­i­ty to speak flu­ent­ly and walk briskly af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke in Jan­u­ary 2012.

In Feb­ru­ary of that year, for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­proved US$91,000 (TT$585,130) to pay for an air am­bu­lance to trans­port him to the pres­ti­gious Wal­ter Reed Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Wash­ing­ton, DC, for ad­di­tion­al med­ical treat­ment.

In Feb­ru­ary 2013, Man­ning suf­fered a seizure and col­lapsed at his of­fice. He has been do­ing phys­io­ther­a­py since then and has re­gained his abil­i­ty to walk and speak.

He re­tired from pol­i­tics in Feb­ru­ary 2015 when the PNM, then led by Row­ley, was screen­ing gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees for his for­mer San Fer­nan­do East seat. He had rep­re­sent­ed San Fer­nan­do East from 1971 to 2015 and was prime min­is­ter from 1991-95 and 2001-10.

Gon­salves in late vis­it

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves paid a late vis­it to Man­ning last evening and re­port­ed that he was in "good spir­its."

Speak­ing to me­dia camped out­side the hos­pi­tal af­ter his vis­it, Gon­salves, who was on a stop over in T&T, said he felt ob­lig­at­ed to vis­it Man­ning since he was his brethren and they were "very tight" from way back.

Gon­salves said he and Man­ning had a long con­ver­sa­tion about na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events in­clud­ing the UK Brex­it is­sue as well as on their re­spec­tive health is­sues. He said he found Man­ning to be in good spir­its and they al­so shared a few laughs, prompt­ing med­ical staff to won­der what all the laugh­ter was about.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, via a state­ment yes­ter­day, said the Op­po­si­tion's prayers and thoughts were with Man­ning and his fam­i­ly.

"As a for­mer prime min­is­ter and long­stand­ing pub­lic ser­vant, we have no doubt that the na­tion will join us in send­ing prayers and heart­felt wish­es to the Man­ning fam­i­ly."