The Trinidad and To­ba­go Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TMA) has wel­comed the $8.214 bil­lion bud­get al­lo­ca­tion to the Min­istry of Health—the high­est in over a decade and the sec­ond-largest al­lo­ca­tion af­ter Ed­u­ca­tion.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, Dr Dar­ren K. Dookeer­am, said the As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pects the fund­ing to be used strate­gi­cal­ly to strength­en the coun­try’s health sys­tem and build on its long­stand­ing suc­cess­es. He said the T&TMA looks for­ward to work­ing with the Min­istry to en­sure con­tin­ued im­prove­ment in health­care de­liv­ery.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so wel­comed Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish a Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court and a No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund, de­scrib­ing the ini­tia­tives as im­por­tant steps to­ward jus­tice and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the sec­tor.

Dr Dookeer­am added that greater in­vest­ment is need­ed in con­tin­u­ous med­ical ed­u­ca­tion. He called for at­ten­tion to be giv­en to young doc­tors who re­main un­em­ployed or who are work­ing on short-term locum con­tracts.