SASCHA WIL­SON

Mem­bers of the me­dia were phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly as­sault­ed by se­cu­ri­ty guards at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. TV6 video jour­nal­ist Cindy Raghubar-Teekas­ingh and Che Teekas­ingh were stand­ing at the car park record­ing footage of a COVID-19 screen­ing area near the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment when they were ac­cost­ed by the guards. There have been sim­i­lar as­saults on me­dia per­son­nel by se­cu­ri­ty guards at the hos­pi­tal over the years.

A vis­i­bly shak­en Raghubar-Teekas­ingh said al­though the car park is a pub­lic place she still in­formed two of­fi­cials from the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (SWRHA) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment that they were on the com­pound.

“While record­ing one se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer came up to us and told us we can­not be here. We told him we can and we had per­mis­sion. He was very ag­gres­sive to­wards us, start­ed push­ing our cam­eras away and threat­en­ing to call oth­er peo­ple.”

Know­ing that they were with­in their rights, she said they con­tin­ued do­ing their job. “Then two oth­er se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers came. The oth­er was very ag­gres­sive to the TTT cam­era per­son. He threat­ened to ar­rest us and then he said he is go­ing to come back with a ba­ton if we didn’t lis­ten. He did that. He left and came back with a ba­ton.

“He was swing­ing the ba­ton in front of the TTT cam­era per­son at which point I start­ed record­ing the or­deal.

That’s when a fe­male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer came up to me and pushed my cam­era. She grabbed the lens and was twist­ing it. She then pro­ceed­ed to grab my left hand. I told her to let me go.

“I was try­ing to record her at that time, she got more ag­gres­sive. She then took my hand and placed it to the back of me. She grabbed my oth­er hand and put it to the back of me. So I was in a choke-hold ba­si­cal­ly. The grip was very tight.”

She said when oth­er peo­ple start­ed record­ing the in­ci­dent, the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer re­leased her. Teekas­ingh said a male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer was block­ing his cam­era and de­mand­ing that they leave the com­pound. “We said sir are we al­lowed to be on the com­pound we are in a pub­lic space.”

He said an­oth­er of­fi­cer pushed him and he in turn pushed away the of­fi­cer’s hand. He said the of­fi­cer grabbed his cam­era, then left and re­turned with a ba­ton and be­gan hit­ting the cam­era which was still record­ing. Teekas­ingh called on the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) to take ac­tion against the guards. When oth­er me­dia ar­rived, the se­cu­ri­ty guards al­so cau­tioned them against tak­ing pho­tographs or video record­ings.

CNC3’s video jour­nal­ist Ivan Toolsie was al­so as­sault­ed by a fe­male guard. SWRHA’s of­fi­cials came short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and in­di­cat­ed that mem­bers of the me­dia were al­lowed on that area of the com­pound. A trau­ma­tised Teekas­ingh com­plained about ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pains to her wrists and in­di­cat­ed that she may have to seek med­ical treat­ment. They were un­cer­tain whether their equip­ment was dam­aged. A re­port was made at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty sub­se­quent­ly is­sued a state­ment stat­ing that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched to un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances which led to the un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent. Ac­cord­ing to the SWRHA, it will then de­ter­mine the ap­pro­pri­ate and nec­es­sary course of ac­tion to fol­low. Ex­press­ing re­gret that the in­ci­dent oc­curred, the SWRHA re­stat­ed its com­mit­ment to re­spect for free­dom of the press.

The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T called on the po­lice and SWRHA to deal with swift­ly and force­ful­ly the as­sault on me­dia per­son­nel by the hos­pi­tal’s con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.