When you listen to the Minister of Health, the Chairman of the NWRHA, the nurses’ protests and the endless complaints from citizens, one has to seriously wonder whether our healthcare system is really in a good place.
Not buildings and fancy additions like the Children’s Hospital or expansions at POSGH, but whether we truly have enough professional doctors, specialists and technical capacity to handle the country’s growing medical challenges.
Today the country saw the reality for itself, people took almost three hours to get to work because traffic was brought to a standstill by persons lining up for free eye surgeries at the Seventh day Adventist clinic, occupying three of four lanes of traffic.
That level of desperation is a national indicator. People are clearly crying out for access to healthcare they cannot otherwise afford. The same troubling signs are everywhere, massive lines for cruise ship jobs, long queues for CEPEP and URP-style work, and daily gridlock east, west, north and south as citizens struggle simply to survive.
These are not isolated incidents; they are warning signs of deeper social and economic stress affecting healthcare, employment and the quality of life in Trinidad and Tobago.
Gordon Laughlin,
Westmoorings
