Hansard - Parliament

48
2012.05.08
themselves. That is what I think.
Now the Minister, notwithstanding my praise of him, the St. Ann’s
Hospital falls under the purview of the North West Regional Health
Authority. You would not believe this, Mr. President. I do not want to
comment upon it because I am acting as the attorney-at-law in a certain
matter that is now in the public domain regarding one Cheryl Miller. I do
not want to dwell on it except to say that I was astounded in light of the facts
that are now in the public domain—some of them yet to be contested in the
courts of Trinidad and Tobago—to hear that the Minister is now on record as
saying that what transpired in respect of Cheryl Miller was a victory for the
Government or for the Ministry of Health. I cannot understand what would
come upon him to say that. Victory, when one considers the fact that this
lady was dragged away from her office?
The matter is not now before the court. It will go there and we will
have a lot to say, but I am taking strong objection to the Minister’s
intervention in public on that. And he describes it as a victory?
I heard Sen. Prof. Ramkissoon, in this Senate last week, identify
issues in relation to some things that went badly wrong at the Brian Lara
Cancer Treatment Centre and I could not help but remember that the very
Minister, when the issue first broke in public, brushed it aside; did not give it
the serious attention it deserved. I am told, by the experts in the field, that
on the scale of disasters in that regard in the world, this one with the Brian
Lara Centre ranks at about number five, if not higher. It is a major disaster.
The Minister brushed it aside and, thanks to Sen. Prof. Ramkissoon,
who forcefully brought the matter back on the national agenda last week, the
public is now crying out for answers and the Minister, as I told you, a