Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Dr Roshan Paras­ram has re­sist­ed at­tempts to re­move him from of­fice and yes­ter­day re­turned to work as the coun­try’s Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO).

Paras­ram was due back at work af­ter months of va­ca­tion leave on Sep­tem­ber 15, and Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that he re­sumed his du­ties yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly re­port­ed that, ac­cord­ing to sources, days be­fore the end of his va­ca­tion leave, Paras­ram was asked to re­sign as CMO.

No rea­son was giv­en for this re­quest, and ef­forts to con­tact the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Health for clar­i­ty and con­fir­ma­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.

While not con­firm­ing that Paras­ram was asked to re­sign, they al­so did not re­fute any of Guardian Me­dia’s re­ports on the is­sue.

As a pub­lic ser­vant po­si­tion, is­sues re­lat­ed to leave and ap­point­ments are in the hands of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

The CMO’s po­si­tion does not have a set term lim­it, and Paras­ram could, in the­o­ry, hold on­to it un­til his re­tire­ment.

He as­sumed the po­si­tion in Jan­u­ary 2017.

Un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing Paras­ram’s fu­ture as CMO sur­faced in May when he was re­port­ed­ly “sent” on leave, with some ques­tion­ing if this was a pre­cur­sor to his ter­mi­na­tion.

At the time, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe dis­missed claims that Paras­ram was “sent” on leave, clar­i­fy­ing that he had “ap­plied” for ac­cu­mu­lat­ed leave through the nor­mal pub­lic ser­vice process.

Sev­er­al at­tempts to get a com­ment from Paras­ram from May to the present have been un­suc­cess­ful.

Bo­doe has stayed away from this is­sue, cit­ing that the op­er­a­tions of the CMO are not with­in his re­mit.

When re­ports first sur­faced about a plan to oust Paras­ram, Bo­doe said he was un­aware of such a de­vel­op­ment.

Asked if he is hap­py with Paras­ram con­tin­u­ing on as the CMO or if he’d rather have a new per­son in that po­si­tion, Bo­doe said, “That is not for me to de­ter­mine; that is for the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.”

He added, “As Min­is­ter of Health, I shall con­tin­ue to lead my min­istry in pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty health ser­vice to the na­tion with the ever-in­creas­ing ef­fort to con­tin­ue to im­prove ser­vices to the sat­is­fac­tion of our cit­i­zens.”

At­tempts were al­so made last week to get a re­sponse from the Act­ing CMO, Dr Priya Laloo. She de­clined to be in­ter­viewed, say­ing that as a pub­lic ser­vant she could not com­ment, and ad­vised that queries be di­rect­ed through the ap­pro­pri­ate chan­nels. She did not con­firm whether she had been in­struct­ed to re­main in the post be­yond Sep­tem­ber 15.

While the Prime Min­is­ter has not ut­tered a word of crit­i­cism against Paras­ram since as­sum­ing of­fice, when she was the op­po­si­tion leader, Paras­ram was on the re­ceiv­ing end of strong con­dem­na­tion.

She fre­quent­ly crit­i­cised the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the pan­dem­ic, ex­tend­ing her dis­ap­proval to Paras­ram and the wider pub­lic health team. She claimed their strate­gies were in­ef­fec­tive and con­tributed to high in­fec­tion and death rates, and at times open­ly called for both Paras­ram and then-health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh to be re­moved.

De­spite this, Paras­ram was award­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s high­est na­tion­al ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in Sep­tem­ber 2022 for his lead­er­ship of the coun­try’s pub­lic health re­sponse to COVID-19.

Com­ing to his de­fence when the re­ports sur­faced of at­tempts to re­move him from of­fice, a pub­lic health spe­cial­ist who asked for anonymi­ty said that Paras­ram’s guid­ance saved the lives of many health­care work­ers, and he should be re­gard­ed as a na­tion­al hero.