Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing whether to fill va­can­cies in the pub­lic health sec­tor with Cuban health­care pro­fes­sion­als, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has said.

Bo­doe made the state­ment in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to queries from Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne.

He said the to­tal num­ber of Cuban health­care pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go as at March 10 is 58.

That in­cludes four doc­tors, 53 nurs­es and one ad­min­is­tra­tive co-or­di­na­tor, Bo­doe added.

On whether the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to fill any ex­ist­ing va­can­cies in the pub­lic health sec­tor with Cuban health­care pro­fes­sion­als, Bo­doe said, “This mat­ter is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.”

When Browne asked what fac­tors are be­ing con­sid­ered by the Min­istry in its on­go­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion of re­cruit­ment of Cuban health­care pro­fes­sion­als, Bo­doe said, “That ques­tion has been asked and an­swered: the mat­ter is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.”

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge al­so an­swered a ques­tion from PNM Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man, con­firm­ing that an of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed in­to the vi­o­lent in­ci­dent re­port­ed to have oc­curred in Crown Point, To­ba­go, on/about Feb­ru­ary 8 in­volv­ing Kevon Lewis and al­leged T&T De­fence Force mem­bers.

“It is on­go­ing – there are no find­ings just yet,” Sturge said.

Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our replied to oth­er queries from Roberts-Radg­man on the dis­placed sea­far­ers who pre­vi­ous­ly worked aboard the Cabo Star and why they have not been en­gaged to pro­vide ser­vices on the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny.

Za­k­our said the dis­placed work­ers were not em­ploy­ees of the Port Au­thor­i­ty, which man­ages the en­gage­ment of mar­itime work­ers.

“As such, they didn’t hold em­ploy­ment con­tracts with the Au­thor­i­ty. In this re­gard, they were not en­gaged by the Port Au­thor­i­ty to pro­vide ser­vices on the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny…,” he said.

Al­so yes­ter­day, To­ba­go Li­ai­son co-or­di­na­tor in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Ash­worth Jack, was ap­point­ed as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor re­plac­ing Sen­a­tor Bri­an Baig, who is ill.

Baig has been on leave for the last two months and was hos­pi­talised to deal with a con­di­tion. He has de­nied that he had a heart at­tack.