Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to mem­bers of the med­ical team who re­ceived na­tion­al awards last evening for their work dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram re­ceived the na­tion’s high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) from Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes yes­ter­day.

The Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) will be pre­sent­ed to oth­er health team lead­ers: Dr Av­ery Hinds (Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor, Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Di­vi­sion), Dr Michelle Trot­man (Co-or­di­na­tor and Health Ser­vice Lec­tur­er, UTT) and Prin­ci­pal Med­ical of­fi­cer Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards and Prof Chris­tine Car­ring­ton (Pro­fes­sor of Mol­e­c­u­lar Ge­net­ics and Vi­rol­o­gy).

“As Min­is­ter of Health led by the Hon PM and sup­port­ed by the Cab­i­net, it has been my priv­i­lege to be as­so­ci­at­ed with this team, a team of lo­cal pub­lic of­fi­cers who rose to the oc­ca­sion when we need­ed them most,” Deyals­ingh said in a mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia to­day.

“The CMO, as the lead pub­lic of­fi­cer re­ceives the coun­try’s high­est award, a fit­ting trib­ute to his ded­i­ca­tion. My eter­nal grat­i­tude al­so goes out to every cat­e­go­ry of health care pro­fes­sion­als both clin­i­cal and non-clin­i­cal for their to­tal ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty.”

The awards cer­e­mo­ny took place at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain.