Just over one hun­dred days in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s term in of­fice, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says his min­istry has al­ready made mea­sur­able progress.

But with 52 pledges list­ed in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress man­i­festo, Bo­doe has con­firmed that on­ly two health­care re­form promis­es have been brought to fruition thus far. Work on eight oth­ers is un­der­way.

These are the re­view of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund leg­is­la­tion, promise num­ber one, and the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP), promise num­ber 33.

The Chil­dren’s Life Fund (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, the first bill to be laid in Par­lia­ment by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion, was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate on June 13 and June 23, re­spec­tive­ly.

The amend­ed bill ex­pand­ed the cat­e­go­ry of ap­pli­cants who may qual­i­fy for a grant to in­clude those with life-lim­it­ing ill­ness­es.

It al­so in­tro­duced a mech­a­nism to al­low the Min­is­ter of Health to re­view a de­ci­sion of the Board of Man­age­ment of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund Au­thor­i­ty where an ap­pli­ca­tion has been re­ject­ed for a grant un­der the Act.

Bo­doe said the Gov­ern­ment has al­so kept its promise to re­view and up­date the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP).

Ac­cord­ing to the man­i­festo, the Gov­ern­ment promised to stream­line med­ica­tion and in­crease ser­vice to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

It al­so promised to in­clude new­er drugs for the treat­ment of hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes.

Bo­doe re­vealed to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an in­ter­view last Thurs­day that eight oth­er promis­es are in the pipeline.

These in­clude fix­ing sup­ply chain is­sues to pre­vent the short­age of drugs, es­tab­lish­ing max­i­mum wait times as well as de­creas­ing wait times for surg­eries and clin­ic ap­point­ments, build­ing cath labs, ini­ti­at­ing a Na­tion­al Aware­ness Cam­paign on men­tal health, draft­ing a Na­tion­al Com­pre­hen­sive Men­tal Health Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan, form­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships to widen the Min­istry of Health’s reach in men­tal health pro­mo­tion, and re­fur­bish­ing and re­sourc­ing the Health Min­istry’s In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD).

When it comes to de­creas­ing wait times for clin­ic ap­point­ments, the min­is­ter said a wait­ing list com­mit­tee is be­ing formed and wait­ing lists are be­ing ad­dressed.

As for promise num­ber five, he said a sup­ply chain is­sues re­port is be­ing com­mis­sioned to re­view and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions.

He said the strength­en­ing of the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion, in part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, has al­ready be­gun.

Bo­doe added that some health cen­tres now have ex­tend­ed hours.

This leaves 42 oth­er promis­es yet to see the light of day.

These in­clude cre­at­ing a Na­tion­al Stroke Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, rein­tro­duc­ing a ba­by grant, in­creas­ing the num­ber of lo­cal doc­tors and tech­ni­cians em­ployed in the pub­lic health sys­tem, ex­pan­sion of the am­bu­lance ser­vice, and ma­jor up­grades to med­ical equip­ment.

Asked how he felt about the progress made thus far and whether there were any chal­lenges to achiev­ing the oth­er promis­es, Bo­doe did not re­spond.

At­tempts to con­tact for­mer health min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan were fu­tile.

Al­so con­tact­ed, health min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, de­clined to com­ment, say­ing he pre­ferred to re­main a pri­vate cit­i­zen.

How­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art urged swift ac­tion to re­verse what he de­scribed as years of sys­temic ne­glect. He crit­i­cised the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion for fail­ing to ad­dress the chron­ic short­age of nurs­es and lim­it­ed health­care re­sources.

“No one is com­ing down on the suc­ces­sive min­is­ters of health who have re­fused to pro­vide the nec­es­sary re­sources to pre­vent such a re­cur­rence. No one is com­ing down on the suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments who failed to en­sure we have prop­er­ly trained pae­di­atric nurs­es to take care of our chil­dren,” Stu­art said yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme, Stu­art said the lack of de­ci­sive ac­tion to re­cruit and re­tain nurs­es, along with in­suf­fi­cient med­ical sup­plies and equip­ment, has placed ad­di­tion­al strain on an al­ready over­bur­dened work­force.

“When the as­so­ci­a­tion came out and said we will demon­strate vig­or­ous­ly for the open­ing of the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, it is be­cause we know we don’t have suf­fi­cient nurs­es as we speak, far less to open a fa­cil­i­ty which would fur­ther ex­ac­er­bate the prob­lem we are faced with.”

Stu­art said these short­com­ings have di­rect con­se­quences for pa­tient care, in­clud­ing longer wait­ing times, re­duced ser­vice avail­abil­i­ty, and in­creased burnout among health pro­fes­sion­als.

He called on the Gov­ern­ment to act ur­gent­ly on the out­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing nurs­es’ abil­i­ty to func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly.

“We ex­pect im­me­di­ate mea­sures from the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment to re­verse the de­cline—ag­gres­sive re­cruit­ment, bet­ter re­ten­tion pack­ages, and a clear com­mit­ment to re­source al­lo­ca­tion across all re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties.”