Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Spe­cial­ist med­ical of­fi­cer Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh, who has been cleared of wrong­do­ing near­ly two months af­ter the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an ar­ti­cle he wrote, said the or­deal has strength­ened his com­mit­ment to speak­ing the truth.

Teelucks­ingh, who works at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave fol­low­ing the March 21 pub­li­ca­tion of his ar­ti­cle, The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal. Then Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh or­dered his im­me­di­ate re­in­state­ment.

On Fri­day, SWRHA CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour told Teelucks­ingh that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion had con­clud­ed.

“The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which per­tains to an ar­ti­cle you wrote ti­tled The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal, has con­clud­ed and the in­ves­ti­ga­tor rec­om­mend­ed that no fur­ther ac­tion be tak­en,” Dr Ar­mour said.

Teelucks­ingh said he was re­lieved.

“From the be­gin­ning in March 2025, I stood by the truth — and the truth stood by me. What was dressed up as an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was, in re­al­i­ty, an at­tempt at cen­sor­ship, an ef­fort to in­tim­i­date, to si­lence and to dis­cour­age hon­est con­ver­sa­tion.

“But I did noth­ing wrong. I write not out of mal­ice, but out of a du­ty to my pa­tients, my pro­fes­sion and the pub­lic.”

He added: “To those who tried to make an ex­am­ple of me, I hold no bit­ter­ness. My pur­pose re­mains the same. I will con­tin­ue to speak up, to ask the hard ques­tions and to ad­vo­cate fierce­ly for the dig­ni­ty and well-be­ing of every pa­tient — es­pe­cial­ly the ones who feel for­got­ten.”

Teelucks­ingh thanked God, his fam­i­ly, friends, pa­tients, le­gal team, jour­nal­ists, col­leagues and strangers for their sup­port and said he was re­turn­ing hum­bled and stronger to his work on Ask the Doc­tor and his T&T Guardian col­umn.

“This was nev­er just about me. It was about free­dom of ex­pres­sion, pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the right to care deeply and say so out loud,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh said al­though he was en­cour­aged to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion, he de­clined “out of prin­ci­ple and re­spect for the pub­lic” but hopesl there won’t be a re-oc­cur­rence.

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan SC said the SWRHA backed down un­der threat of le­gal ac­tion from his firm, Free­dom Law Cham­bers.

“I trust that it has set an im­por­tant prece­dent and sent a loud and clear sig­nal that threats to the right to free­dom of speech will not be tol­er­at­ed by the pub­lic,” Ram­lo­gan said.

He said Dr Teelucks­ingh wrote a satir­i­cal piece in his news­pa­per col­umn which some in­ter­pret­ed as a crit­i­cal ex­pose of the PNM gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to de­ceive the pub­lic in­to think­ing it had com­plet­ed and opened a new wing of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. In truth, they sim­ply show­cased one floor with­out re­veal­ing the true state of af­fairs — that the fa­cil­i­ty was miles and mil­lions of dol­lars away from be­ing com­plet­ed.

Ram­lo­gan de­scribed the SWRHA’s ac­tions as “il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” adding that it was “a cru­el irony that the SWRHA sought to sub­ject Teelucks­ingh to such bla­tant po­lit­i­cal bias, vic­tim­i­sa­tion and op­pres­sion when it should be com­pli­ment­ing him for the ex­cel­lent work that he has been do­ing in the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

“This was PNM po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy at its worst,” he said. “It was a naked and raw at­tempt to suf­fo­cate a dis­si­dent voice that was pre­pared to stand on prin­ci­ple for the truth.”

Ram­lo­gan em­pha­sised that satire is pro­tect­ed by the con­sti­tu­tion­al right of free­dom of ex­pres­sion and speech.

He al­so com­mend­ed Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe “for the pos­i­tive ra­di­at­ing ef­fect his guid­ance has no doubt had on re­solv­ing this mat­ter and avoid­ing cost­ly lit­i­ga­tion.”

He called for re­form of the SWRHA, stat­ing: “It has a his­to­ry of cre­at­ing op­pres­sive, cost­ly and avoid­able lit­i­ga­tion when the mon­ey spent on le­gal fees could be bet­ter spent on pro­vid­ing beds, med­i­cine and equip­ment to ben­e­fit the pub­lic.”