Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has read the ri­ot act to Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan, say­ing he has to give up his pri­vate prac­tice at the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal or send in his res­ig­na­tion as Health Min­is­ter.Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter at­tend­ing the launch of a Po­lice Youth Club in her con­stituen­cy of Siparia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was in­ap­pro­pri­ate for Khan to con­tin­ue as a Min­is­ter in her Cab­i­net, while con­tin­u­ing his pri­vate prac­tice.Re­call­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with Khan, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:"I spoke with Dr Khan to­day and I told him that such be­hav­iour is not on­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate but it is un­ten­able, so there­fore he has to make a choice, as of to­day, as to whether he wants to be in pri­vate prac­tice or whether he wants to be a min­is­ter."

She added: "He has un­til to­day (yes­ter­day) to make that de­ci­sion. Should he fail to make a de­ci­sion, I will have to take a de­ci­sion."He sim­ply can­not hold both po­si­tions. He has to ei­ther give up his job as a min­is­ter or give up his pri­vate prac­tice."Khan, in an ex­clu­sive T&T Guardian in­ter­view ad­mit­ted to not dis­clos­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter that he was still op­er­at­ing from the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal be­cause he did not want to cause her any un­due stress.

Asked about this state­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed:"I am not as frag­ile as peo­ple think I am. I am not stressed out that eas­i­ly."You may have to ask him why he had that view. I do not share that view. It is very in­ap­pro­pri­ate and it is very un­ten­able so he has to choose. I am very clear in my mind about it."Pres­i­dent of the Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tion (MPATT), Dr She­henaz Mo­hammed, is out of the coun­try and could not be reached for a com­ment.How­ev­er, a se­nior med­ical source said doc­tors in the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty had raised queries about Khan's con­tin­ued com­mit­ment at his pri­vate prac­tice.

The source added: "We were con­cerned that he could con­tin­ue to use his in­flu­ence as the Health Min­is­ter to pro­mote his prac­tice. "He is putting him­self at risk be­cause peo­ple will go to his pri­vate prac­tice, know­ing that he is the min­is­ter, if they want favours at any of the pub­lic hos­pi­tals. "I am sure Mr Khan is very much aware of that. If he wants to func­tion from the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal, he has to do so free of charge. He can­not con­tin­ue to charge his pa­tients."An­oth­er se­nior med­ical source said Khan might be wor­ried about los­ing his sur­gi­cal skills.How­ev­er, the doc­tor said, if Khan want­ed to up­keep his sur­gi­cal skills he could vol­un­teer to do surg­eries free of charge at any of the na­tion's hos­pi­tals.

On Sun­day both Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Ju­nior Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Clifton de Couteau came out in de­fence of Dr Khan con­tin­u­ing with his pri­vate med­ical prac­tice, while func­tion­ing as the Min­is­ter of Health.Warn­er said there was noth­ing wrong with Khan con­tin­u­ing in pri­vate prac­tice as long as it did not in­ter­fere with his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio.Warn­er said T&T had in­her­it­ed a lot of colo­nial fool­ish­ness.He said: "I think that Fuad has an­swered cor­rect­ly. As long as it doesn't in­ter­fere with his min­istry, I see noth­ing wrong with what Fuad is do­ing."Of course the Prime Min­is­ter has the fi­nal say. What we are hear­ing is old colo­nial fool­ish­ness that we have to change and if Fuad is the cat­a­lyst for that change, then heav­en help him," Warn­er said.