Narace!
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Fund for special cases
Doctors call on Government:
Julien Neaves jneaves@trinidadexpress.com
Tuesday, December 15th 2009
waiting: Nine-year-old liver patient Hanna Lendor needs urgent surgery.
GOVERNMENT should set up a fund to assist citizens with unique medical cases who require treatment abroad, says Trinidad and Tobago Medical Association president Dr Solaiman Juman.
Speaking to the Express yesterday, Juman said such a fund should have been catered for in the past five or six years when the economy was significantly in surplus.
’It comes back to the issue of planning and prioritising our healthcare,’ he said.
The idea of such a fund was touted by Congress of the People (COP) finance secretary Dr Anirudh Mahabir during a media conference last week. He suggested that health surcharge tax could be used for the fund so individuals like nine-year-old liver patient Hanna Lendor would not be ’condemned to death’.
Juman noted that health surcharge is deposited into the Consolidated Fund, from which funding is dispersed to healthcare, and this could be one component. He said another approach would be to set up infrastructure to deal with some of these cases, and through the training of medical professionals and implementing systems within hospitals.
Medical Professionals Association of Trinidad and Tobago secretary general Dr Balkaran Ramkissoon told the Express yesterday such a fund could only be a ’stop gap’ type of measure. He said what was really required was for this country’s ’rapidly deteriorating’ health infrastructure to be ’brought back up to what we should have in a country like ours’.
He said this country should have infrastructure to deal with most surgeries so people would not have to go abroad. He noted that many Trinidadian specialists working abroad would be willing to return if infrastructure was put in place, but they were not encouraged to come back.
At the COP conference, Mahabir said it ’hurt (his) heart’ that Government spent hundreds of millions ’feteing’ foreign dignitaries, but was unwilling to spend $1.3 million for Lendor’s life saving operation.
Lendor’s family has so far raised more than $900,000 and need about $400,000 more for the surgery, which they hoped to have done in Venezuela but are now looking at Argentina. The Health Ministry provided US$10,000, the maximum offered to sick children in need of medical care abroad, but has increased contributions up to TT$127,000. Anyone wishing to help Hanna can make a donation to account number 8917113188 at any RBTT branch.
Mahabir noted that about a year ago COP officials met with Health Minister Jerry Narace and he (Narace) agreed to the idea of an endowment fund for medical treatment abroad, but they have heard nothing since. Last October, ten-month-old Marissa Ramlal died after her family was unable to raise $1.8 million for a liver transplant in the US. Government was knocked for not helping out with a bigger contribution.
In November 2008 Narace said Government was interested in setting up a fund to assist sick children in need of financial assistance for medical procedures, and would be looking into creating a facility to oversee liver transplants in the future.
Efforts to get a response from Narace by phone and text were unsuccessful.
