Renu­ka Singh

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is dou­bling down on her call for the Min­is­ter of Health to demit of­fice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had called for Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s head dur­ing a mo­tion she filed in Sen­ate on Wednes­day evening af­ter the first day of walk-in decor de­volved in to chaos.

On Wednes­day, hun­dreds of cit­i­zens were turned away from health cen­tres af­ter be­ing told to walk in for a COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion.

Deyals­ingh of­fered an un­re­served apol­o­gy on Wednes­day and said the sys­tem was re­vised to give vac­cines by al­pha­bet­i­cal sur­name.

But that too failed yes­ter­day as once again, hun­dreds lined up at fa­cil­i­ties around the coun­try, on­ly to then be told that on­ly 50 to 60 vac­cines would be ad­min­is­tered.

“For a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day Trinidad and To­ba­go has wit­nessed a man­u­fac­tured dis­as­ter at the hands of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

“Af­ter Wednes­day’s su­per spread­er vac­ci­na­tion event the Min­is­ter apol­o­gised and said a new al­pha­bet­i­cal sys­tem would be used,” she said.

“The im­pres­sion was giv­en that the el­der­ly with the sur­names A-E can vis­it a health cen­tre to­day and re­ceive their vac­cines,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that at no time did the Deyals­ingh in­di­cate that on­ly 50 jabs would be avail­able.

“To­day (yes­ter­day), an­oth­er night­mare un­fold­ed as our el­der­ly came out in their num­bers and again were chased away,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that in her own con­stituen­cy of Siparia, she re­ceived re­ports that many peo­ple were be­ing turned away at the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

“The el­der­ly stood in lines for two and three hours on­ly to be told that there is a lim­it on vac­cines,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned why the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple were be­ing ex­posed to the virus.

“Why is such cru­el­ty be­ing in­flict­ed on our el­der­ly?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

“Why can’t the Gov­ern­ment ad­mit that it is un­able to han­dle the man­age­ment of this pan­dem­ic on its own and ac­cept help?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

She said that it was “un­con­scionable, reck­less, heart­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble for Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh to treat peo­ple in this man­ner and con­tin­ue de­fi­ant­ly walk­ing on a failed path”.

She said it was al­so “il­log­i­cal and down­right fool­ish” to al­lo­cate 50 vac­cines per health cen­tre.

This meant vac­ci­nat­ing on­ly 1800 el­der­ly peo­ple a day.

“Every day we are record­ing dou­ble dig­it Covid-19 deaths of most­ly our el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion and Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh must be held ac­count­able,” she said.

“I re­peat Ter­rence Deyals­ingh must go,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Op­po­si­tion leader called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to “rein in his Min­is­ter and take con­trol of the Health Min­istry him­self or re­place him with some­one who is com­pe­tent”.