Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to du­ty on Sep­tem­ber 15, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of his va­ca­tion leave.

Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Natasha Bar­row con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that Dr Paras­ram’s leave ends on Sep­tem­ber 12, with his re­sump­tion sched­uled for the fol­low­ing Mon­day.

In May 2025, re­ports in­di­cat­ed that Paras­ram would be on leave un­til Sep­tem­ber. Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe con­firmed that the leave was pre-ap­proved and part of the stan­dard process for pub­lic ser­vants with ac­cu­mu­lat­ed el­i­gi­ble leave.

Dur­ing Paras­ram’s leave, Dr Ani­ta Laloo was ap­point­ed to act as Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer. Re­ports in­di­cate that Min­istry of Health staff were no­ti­fied of the ap­point­ment via an in­ter­nal email.

The change had sparked con­tro­ver­sy, with some po­lit­i­cal fig­ures sug­gest­ing that Paras­ram was “forced” to take leave, a claim the Gov­ern­ment de­nied.

For­mer Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh had ini­tial­ly raised ques­tions about Paras­ram’s leave, ques­tion­ing if it was part of the new gov­ern­ment’s “purg­ing of pub­lic of­fi­cers”.

On May 23, ques­tions sur­round­ing Paras­ram’s ab­sence were put to Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe.

At the time, he said, “My in­for­ma­tion is that the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Roshan Paras­ram, had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a cer­tain amount of leave, and he had ap­plied for the leave and the nor­mal process, the leave was grant­ed.”

Dr Bo­doe added that he had no con­trol over the post of Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer.

Com­ment­ing on claims that Paras­ram was be­ing forced out by the new gov­ern­ment, the min­is­ter in May said, “I am not aware of that. I’m not aware of that at all.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made pub­lic her crit­i­cisms of Paras­ram in the past and his han­dling of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In 2021, then Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly called for the re­place­ment of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr. Roshan Paras­ram, and the wider health team man­ag­ing the COVID-19 re­sponse.

Dr Paras­ram was award­ed the coun­try’s high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in Sep­tem­ber 2022 dur­ing the Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions. The award was pre­sent­ed to him for his “dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice” to the coun­try, specif­i­cal­ly for his lead­er­ship role in the pub­lic health re­sponse to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The of­fi­cial state­ment from the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent at the time praised his “un­flap­pable de­meanour” and “pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach”, which pro­vid­ed much-need­ed calm dur­ing the pub­lic health cri­sis. The award recog­nised his tire­less work in pro­vid­ing dai­ly up­dates and crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic, which made him a house­hold name in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ef­forts to con­tact Paras­ram and the Health Min­is­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.