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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

SWRHA apologises for denying three cops medical attention

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2657 days ago
20180421

The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has apol­o­gised to three po­lice of­fi­cers who were re­port­ed­ly re­fused med­ical at­ten­tion at the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

The SWRHA was re­spond­ing to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in this news­pa­per on April 20 about three of­fi­cers, dressed in po­lice uni­form, who went to the health fa­cil­i­ty af­ter re­ceiv­ing mi­nor in­juries dur­ing the ar­rest of two men.

How­ev­er, WPC Anisa Ali, PC Kevon Vial­va and PC Mark Ramkalwan, at­tached to the Cou­va Po­lice claimed they were re­fused treat­ment be­cause they did not have a med­ical card.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, the SWRHA stat­ed that it was cur­rent­ly en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with the of­fi­cers at the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion to fi­nalise the re­port on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion will be tak­en.

The SWRHA sought to as­sure the pub­lic that it is not the au­thor­i­ty’s pol­i­cy to de­ny ac­cess to any client seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion at any of their health­care fa­cil­i­ties.

The re­lease stat­ed, “On Sun­day, 15th April, 2018, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.40 am three po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cessed health­care ser­vices at the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty’s Emer­gency De­part­ment. As is cus­tom­ary, at the start of the triage process, es­pe­cial­ly for re­peat clients, staff in­quired the pur­pose of the vis­it and whether or not one of the of­fi­cers had an Emer­gency De­part­ment Reg­is­tra­tion Card. It has been and con­tin­ues to be our prac­tice that all clients ac­cess­ing health­care at any of our fa­cil­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly emer­gency care, re­ceive the best clin­i­cal care as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the po­lice of­fi­cers left pri­or to com­plet­ing the triage process. As a re­sult, we wish to ex­tend an apol­o­gy to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, as well as the three po­lice of­fi­cers for any mis­un­der­stand­ing and in­con­ve­nience caused as a re­sult.”

The SWRHA reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to the con­tin­ued pro­vi­sion of health­care to the pop­u­la­tion of the South-West Re­gion.

—SACHA WIL­SON


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