RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) di­rec­tor Dr Anand Cha­toor­goon says the au­thor­i­ty’s board has been re­duced to five mem­bers fol­low­ing four res­ig­na­tions, rais­ing ques­tions about whether it can con­tin­ue to func­tion law­ful­ly.

Cha­toor­goon, who re­signed last week along with for­mer chair­man Anil Go­sine and di­rec­tor Sinanan Dass, said the board had ini­tial­ly com­prised nine mem­bers.

For­mer deputy chair­man Natasha Mooni­lal, a lawyer, re­signed in Feb­ru­ary 2026, and her po­si­tion was not filled.

Cha­toor­goon said the Sec­ond Sched­ule of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties Act pro­vides for a board of no few­er than sev­en and no more than nine mem­bers.

He said he was con­cerned about the le­gal im­pli­ca­tions of the board con­tin­u­ing with few­er than sev­en mem­bers. He called on Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­am­ine the sit­u­a­tion and fill the va­can­cies.

Cha­toor­goon said de­ci­sions tak­en with­out a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed board could be chal­lenged, but stressed that this was his per­son­al view and not a le­gal opin­ion.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the board’s over­sight of chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr She­vanand Gopeesingh, al­leg­ing strained re­la­tions and say­ing board res­o­lu­tions had not been im­ple­ment­ed.

Cha­toor­goon cit­ed a dis­pute over the ap­point­ment of an act­ing med­ical di­rec­tor at Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, fol­low­ing a com­plaint raised by the Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

To the best of his knowl­edge, he said, the board was al­so with­out a chair­man, deputy chair­man and lawyer fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tions.

How­ev­er, fel­low for­mer di­rec­tor Dass said he re­signed pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of his age and the de­mands of serv­ing on the board.

Dass, who is 78 and ap­proach­ing 79, said he had agreed to serve af­ter be­ing asked to help but found the com­mit­ment too de­mand­ing while main­tain­ing his own prac­tice.

“At my age, I stepped down. I have 78, go­ing in 79, and I find it was too much for me,” he said.

Asked about re­port­ed ten­sions be­tween the board and Gopeesingh, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer had made uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions, Dass said he was no longer in­volved in the au­thor­i­ty’s af­fairs.

“If they want to op­er­ate like that, let them go ahead. I am out there, so I’m no longer there,” he said.

Dass said he had heard dis­cus­sions about is­sues in­volv­ing the CEO and the board but was not present at a meet­ing where one such mat­ter was raised.

He said his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty had been fi­nance and that he had not per­son­al­ly ex­pe­ri­enced prob­lems with any­one. He added that he had worked well with the gen­er­al man­ag­er of fi­nance.

Dass al­so ques­tioned whether the board could con­tin­ue to func­tion with five mem­bers.

“As far as I know, it shouldn’t func­tion be­cause our board should have no less than sev­en mem­bers,” he said.

At­tempts were made to con­tact SWRHA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr She­vanand Gopeesingh and Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe for com­ment, but there was no re­sponse up to press time.