Once again, the hos­pi­tal in Cou­va ap­pears to be head­ing to­ward a to­tal­ly un­nec­es­sary con­tro­ver­sy, this time over a pos­si­ble mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of a state­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists af­ter the swear­ing-in of most of her Cab­i­net last Sat­ur­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked about the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal there.

Her face light­ing up, the gush­ing Prime Min­is­ter said, “I want to open that! I was pass­ing there to­day and I said I have to open this hos­pi­tal. It is a state-of-the art hos­pi­tal! How soon will de­pend on when we send our teams in there to do an as­sess­ment, a fea­si­bil­i­ty. As soon, as soon as we can.”

In a sto­ry in to­day’s news­pa­per, Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe seems to have heard his Prime Min­is­ter’s en­thu­si­asm, but not the com­ment about the need for “an as­sess­ment, a fea­si­bil­i­ty.”

His com­ments, there­fore, about the Gov­ern­ment mov­ing ahead to op­er­a­tionalise the Cou­va hos­pi­tal, even go­ing as far as speak­ing about the hir­ing of for­eign nurs­es, are well-mean­ing, but quite pre­ma­ture.

And quite pre­dictably, Dr Bo­doe’s com­ments im­me­di­ate­ly re­sult­ed in some push­back from the lo­qua­cious head of the T&T Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA), Idi Stew­art, who down­played the pos­si­bil­i­ty of for­eign nurs­es com­ing to work in T&T’s state-run health­care in­sti­tu­tions.

On this score, it is ap­pro­pri­ate and thought­ful of the Prime Min­is­ter to sep­a­rate her anx­i­ety to en­sure that the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal is ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised from the very le­git­i­mate need to have a thor­ough as­sess­ment or fea­si­bil­i­ty study done of the fa­cil­i­ty.

And, in fact, now may be the right time for the Gov­ern­ment to pro­cure a best-use case analy­sis of the pro­vi­sion of state health­care in T&T.

In short, in­stead of rush­ing out and look­ing to get more pa­tients in­to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty (it was re­named in 2018), it would be more pro­pi­tious for the ex­perts from the Min­istry of Health, pos­si­bly in col­lab­o­ra­tion with coun­ter­par­ties from the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, to do a prop­er as­sess­ment and/or fea­si­bil­i­ty study of how the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal fits in­to the pro­vi­sion of health­care through­out the coun­try.

Since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit T&T in March 2020, the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion “opened” five hos­pi­tals in T&T. In June 2020, the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal was opened; fol­lowed by the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal in Ju­ly 2020 and the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal in Jan­u­ary 2021. The San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal Cam­pus was opened in April 2024 and a cer­e­mo­ny was held in March this year to mark the prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion of the Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

That means that in the last five years, the num­ber of hos­pi­tal beds in T&T has in­creased by more than 900.

There is most cer­tain­ly a need for gen­er­al hos­pi­tals, such as those found in Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Mount Hope, Ari­ma and San­gre Grande, where the staff treat a wide range of ail­ments for a size­able area of T&T. But a wide-rang­ing study of the pro­vi­sion of health­care in this coun­try may find that it has reached the po­si­tion of be­ing able to have spe­cialised hos­pi­tals, where the fo­cus of the staff would be nar­row­er. This is the con­text in which the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal may fi­nal­ly achieve its best use.

On this is­sue, the Gov­ern­ment should be guid­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­stinct for an as­sess­ment rather than the need for speed.