(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has put together a five-member team to evaluate the State’s handling of the COVID-19 virus “with a professional eye” and present their findings in one week.
The Joint Trade Union Movement wrote to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi on Thursday detailing their suggestions as an alternative to the vaccine policy and one of their suggestions was an independent panel to vet the Government’s data and statistics on the COVID-19 virus in the country. The JTUM had asked that they nominate two of the people in the committee and that a chairman be appointed by the President. But on Saturday, the Prime Minister said that he selected the five independent experts without any consultation with the trade union movement.
The Prime Minister selected a team to be led by Prof Terrence Seemungal who is the dean at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies. The team also comprise Prof Emerita Phyllis Pitt-Millier who is a consultant anaesthetist and Intensive Care specialist and a former medical faculty dean at UWI, Dr Anton Cumberbatch a former chief medical officer and a Public Health Specialist, Dr Vidya Dean a consultant anaesthetist and Intensive Care Specialist and Prof Donald Simeon, a director at the Caribbean Centre for Health Systems Research and Development. Simeon is also a professor of Biostatistics and Public Health Research at UWI.
The team was given the scope to identify the number of patients who died from COVID-19 and demarcate those deaths by number and types of comorbidities including obesity. They will also categorise their findings by ethnicity, age and gender.
The team has been given one week to also complete the following mandate:
*To review the definition of ‘COVID-19 Death’ used by the Ministry of Health for consistency with WHO guidelines and standard practice; and comment on the different methodologies for calculating case fatality rate (CFR) and make recommendations for the appropriate methodology for Trinidad and Tobago.
*Examine the Admission, Discharge and Transfer (ADT) policy and procedure to determine the impact, if any, on clinical outcome.
*Determine if the treatment and management protocols adopted by the Hospitals are consistent within WHO guidelines and international best practice, with access to adequate:
a. Levels of Staffing appropriate in a mass response to a global pandemic;
b. Essential Medicines;
c. Laboratory and Diagnostic Imaging Services;
d. PPE; Oxygen; other.
*Review the standards of care of COVID-19 patients, based on acuity, for uniformity and consistency within and across hospitals in the Regional Health Authorities (RHA).
*Identify any other factors that may affect clinical outcomes including, but not limited to:
a. suboptimal home treatment, for eg, utilising non-WHO approved therapeutics;
b. delayed presentation to health facilities;
c. efficiency of the transfer system in transporting patients from home to hospital and inter-hospitals in the RHA health network.
The JTUM has been pushing back against the Government’s vaccine policy and is instead calling for people to be given the choice to vaccinate or not.
While the Prime Minister roundly dismissed parts of the statement, he said he was glad they penned their side.
“It allows the Government to see the breadth of thought and more importantly the alternative that is available,” the PM said.
The country has recorded over 3,000 COVID-19 deaths and the JTUM letter said that there seemed to be a significantly low risk of death or hospitalisation associated with the COVID-19 infection.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that is the position of JTUM. The Government does not agree,” he said.
Rowley said that between 20 and 30 people die every day from COVID-19 and he did not consider that a low-risk figure.
He said that people cannot envisage what is happening at the hospitals and choose to speak like that.
He said that he accepted the trade unions wanted people to have the choice.
“But you know what that is also saying to the population? and I read that from this document. It is saying let is leave it to choice and who live, live and who dead, dead,” he said.
“A government in this situation cannot accept that as a response for a population in a pandemic that has already killed over 3,000 people,” Rowley said.
Rowley said despite the alarming death rate, some people were still prepared to get into a fight with the Government.
“The Government is not prepared to get into a fight with anybody, the Government is prepared to do what has to be done to defend the people of T&T, and that is all by choice,” he said.
He also questioned another part of the JTUM letter which called for the independent examination of what the Government presents as data as they did not trust the Government information or the medical professionals who disseminate it.
“If the technical health experts in T&T don’t work with the political directorate in a pandemic, who are they supposed to work with? And if the Government does not use the information from the technical expertise from the people in the state sector, who should the Government use? So why must the political directorate feel like it must separate itself from the health care experts?” he asked.
Rowley asked if the State would rely on the trade union leaders for medical advice instead.
“I am sorry that the data is not being accepted by some quarters,” he said.
Rowley said that he had heard the Opposition question the veracity of the data but was surprised that they would also take that position.
“I find that a little bit difficult to swallow,” he said.
