The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mass res­ig­na­tion of the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) board, warn­ing that pro­longed lead­er­ship un­cer­tain­ty could un­der­mine health­care de­liv­ery, work­ers’ rights and pub­lic con­fi­dence.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion urged Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe to rec­om­mend suit­ably qual­i­fied peo­ple for ap­point­ment to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of the au­thor­i­ty’s op­er­a­tions.

The call fol­lows a se­ries of res­ig­na­tions, with con­cerns al­so raised about the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the board and SWRHA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr She­vanand Gopeesingh.

For­mer board mem­ber Dr Anand Cha­toor­goon al­leged that Gopeesingh re­fused to im­ple­ment four res­o­lu­tions unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved by the eight-mem­ber board.

“This CEO was dis­mis­sive of, dis­re­spect­ful to and dis­obe­di­ent to the SWRHA board,” Cha­toor­goon said.

Gopeesingh and Bo­doe had not re­spond­ed to re­quests for com­ment up to press time, while at­tempts to con­tact SWRHA com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, Kevon Ger­vais, were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

The res­ig­na­tions un­fold­ed over sev­er­al months. For­mer deputy chair­man Natasha Mooni­lal, a qual­i­fied at­tor­ney, re­signed in Feb­ru­ary, but her po­si­tion was nev­er filled.

For­mer chair­man Anil Go­sine, Cha­toor­goon and di­rec­tor Sinanan Dass re­signed last Mon­day. Go­sine cit­ed per­son­al rea­sons; Cha­toor­goon said he want­ed to serve at the na­tion­al lev­el; while Dass said that, at 78, he could no longer bear the bur­den of a board ap­point­ment.

Last Thurs­day, five more di­rec­tors—Shar­ma, Gokool-Seep­er­sad, Hall, Richard­son and Saun­ders—ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions, to take ef­fect with­in two weeks.

The TTNNA said the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the res­ig­na­tions raised crit­i­cal ques­tions about gov­er­nance, lead­er­ship, ac­count­abil­i­ty and over­sight at the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty and should not be treat­ed as a rou­tine ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ter. It al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the res­ig­na­tions came amid con­tro­ver­sy over ter­mi­na­tion no­tices is­sued to dai­ly-paid work­ers, un­cer­tain­ty about their em­ploy­ment sta­tus and re­ports that the no­tices had been with­drawn.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the sit­u­a­tion re­in­forced the need for a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed board to en­sure ef­fec­tive over­sight, fair em­ploy­ment prac­tices and safe­guards against ar­bi­trary de­ci­sions, vic­tim­i­sa­tion and abuse of pow­er.

The TTNNA called on Bo­doe to com­mis­sion an in­de­pen­dent and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the res­ig­na­tions, en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of health­care op­er­a­tions and com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly with work­ers and the pub­lic about in­ter­im arrange­ments. It al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to in­tro­duce mea­sures to pre­vent a re­cur­rence.