Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Min­istry of Health has re­duced its ex­pen­di­ture for drugs and re­lat­ed sup­plies by $100 mil­lion for 2026, but Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has as­sured that the sup­ply to health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals will not be af­fect­ed.

“I want the pop­u­la­tion to have the as­sur­ance that this ex­pen­di­ture cut will not cause any short­age of drugs at health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals,” Bo­doe said yes­ter­day dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion of the Health Min­istry’s 2026 bud­get.

He added, “Some $700 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed for drug sup­plies for 2026. I as­sure the pub­lic that this will be suf­fi­cient to cov­er the drugs re­quired.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning had ear­li­er point­ed out the $100 mil­lion cut re­flect­ed in the Bud­get doc­u­ments. How­ev­er, Bo­doe main­tained that the al­lo­ca­tion of $700 mil­lion for 2026 would be ad­e­quate.

Bo­doe ex­plained that the ac­tu­al cost of drugs and re­lat­ed sup­plies usu­al­ly hov­ers around $700 mil­lion.

“In 2024, it was $448 mil­lion and re­vised for 2025, so we be­lieve the $700 mil­lion is enough at this time,” he said.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo al­so de­fend­ed the al­lo­ca­tion, say­ing it was de­signed to cor­rect de­fi­cien­cies un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed the $700 mil­lion to en­sure it took care of things the PNM didn’t,” Tan­coo said. “A ten­der went out for sup­plies via Nipdec, and the $700 mil­lion is suf­fi­cient. We be­lieve, based on our agen­da, that this will pro­vide enough drugs to the pub­lic.”

St Ann’s East MP Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ex­pressed con­cern about pos­si­ble drug short­ages when con­stituents vis­it health cen­tres, say­ing the ex­pen­di­ture cut “on this very im­por­tant item” could im­pact the pub­lic.

Bo­doe again dis­missed those fears.

“Cer­tain­ly not. I give the pub­lic the as­sur­ance that will not be the case. It won’t cause a short­age. In ad­di­tion, we’re ex­plor­ing new pro­cure­ment meth­ods to get more val­ue for mon­ey on drug and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal spend­ing,” he said.

He added that Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia to sup­port drug pro­cure­ment.

“We an­tic­i­pate this al­lo­ca­tion will be suf­fi­cient, and if more is re­quired, there are oth­er av­enues that can be ex­plored,” Bo­doe said.

Bo­doe al­so con­firmed that $527,000 has been al­lo­cat­ed for the for­ma­tion of new com­mit­tees to be ap­point­ed by the Cab­i­net, if re­quired, to fur­ther the Min­istry’s pol­i­cy agen­da.

“There are sev­er­al ar­eas we met, in­clud­ing the surgery back­log and wait­ing-time is­sues, and there may be a need for ad­di­tion­al com­mit­tees at the Min­istry lev­el to ad­dress these. A lot of work needs to be done,” he said.

Tan­coo added that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion had in­her­it­ed “a bar­rage of prob­lems due to poor fa­cil­i­ties, fi­nanc­ing, and sup­port for the Min­istry.”

“This war­rant­ed a re­view to plan a bet­ter way for­ward,” he said. “That means, of ne­ces­si­ty, some com­mit­tees will be es­tab­lished. The $527,000 is a con­tin­gency, in case fur­ther com­mit­tees are re­quired. This is to as­sess the prob­lems, find so­lu­tions, and im­ple­ment mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems to fix the rot over the last nine years.”

Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion af­ter $100 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment fund­ing was al­lo­cat­ed for the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal — with no fund­ing for the Ari­ma, Point Fortin, or San­gre Grande hos­pi­tals built un­der the PNM.

Im­bert not­ed that the UNC opened the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal ten years ago and charged that the Gov­ern­ment was “dis­crim­i­nat­ing against ar­eas where there are PNM peo­ple.”

Bo­doe re­ject­ed the claims, say­ing he vis­it­ed the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal on Sep­tem­ber 17 and found it in need of ex­ten­sive re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion af­ter a decade of ne­glect.

“A lot is re­quired to have it ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised,” he said, list­ing up­grades to med­ical equip­ment, in­clud­ing X-ray scan­ners, MRI ma­chines, in­cu­ba­tors, anaes­the­sia units, and in­fu­sion pumps.

He al­so cit­ed ur­gent work on plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal sys­tems, cool­ing tow­ers, fire pro­tec­tion, HVAC and ven­ti­la­tion sys­tems, and the build­ing’s façade and walk­ways.

Tan­coo said bud­get doc­u­ments showed that the Ari­ma and Point Fortin hos­pi­tals were al­ready com­plet­ed, while work on San­gre Grande was still in progress. He added that the $100 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion was for both the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

“The PNM Gov­ern­ment left the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal to rot — shame on you! That’s why there is $100 mil­lion here: to fix what you all aban­doned!” Tan­coo de­clared, prompt­ing loud ex­changes from both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion bench­es.

As Gads­by-Dol­ly at­tempt­ed to raise a query, tem­pers flared when a fe­male UNC Min­is­ter shout­ed to the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee chair­man, Jagdeo Singh, “Chair­man, switch off her mike!”

Gads­by-Dol­ly lat­er ques­tioned the ad­e­qua­cy of al­lo­ca­tions to fill 515 health-sec­tor va­can­cies. Tan­coo, blam­ing the PNM for the short­fall, said it would be “im­prop­er” to fund all po­si­tions im­me­di­ate­ly since a re­view and pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of crit­i­cal roles are now un­der­way.