There is a sense in which Dr Leslie Ramsammy’s recent public statement announcing the termination of the employment of Dr Vishwamintra Persaud at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation departs significantly from the posture usually taken by government ministers and other high officials in the face of blunders and wrongdoings inside their ministry or department. We have become much more accustomed to the kind of damage control that seeks to absolve the Minister or high official of any blame whatsoever, frequently by having some lesser functionary take the fall. In this instance, Minister Ramsammy has been made to carry the can. “The blame is entirely mine,” he says.
The Health Minister’s open confession appears to have been thrust upon him by force of circumstances. The blunder to which he admits in the matter of the hiring of Dr Persaud followed other disturbing occurrences within the health portfolio including a series of maternity-related deaths at state hospitals, and a breach of security resulting in a violent attack on a nurse on duty. It will be recalled that recently Dr Ramsammy and his junior Minister, Dr Bheri Ramsaran had reportedly attracted a reprimand from their cabinet colleagues over shortcomings within the health sector and that the Cabinet Secretary had placed that fact in the public domain. In the case of the blunder that resulted in Dr Persaud’s appointment a political decision may well have been taken that, this time around, Dr Ramsammy would take the fall, personally and publicly. Indeed, the pronouncement by Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand that she understood Dr Persaud would be dismissed, pre-empted Dr Ramsammy’s own announcement of the dismissal in a manner that must surely have been embarrassing to the Health Minister.
Dr Ramsammy’s statement also forthrightly debunks the views of those who naively sought to make a case for ‘another chance’ for Dr Persaud, whose retention at the GPHC would surely have made a thorough mockery of the Sexual Offences Act, and left the government wide open to criticism from every conceivable child protection agency and lobbyist in the Caribbean. Once his past had become a matter of public knowledge Dr Persaud’s continued employment as a doctor at the GPHC would also have made life difficult for the institution in an operational sense. Politically too, it would have been an act of unfathomable folly.
As much as Dr Ramsammy’s statement can be credited with both uncharacteristic ministerial frankness and a generous measure of apology, it also raises some deeply disturbing issues which are decidedly at variance with his view that the matter is now “behind us.”
One ponders, for example, Dr Ramsammy’s confession that the procedures attending Dr Persaud’s recruitment were deficient insofar as “we erred in not ensuring that the recruitment of Dr Persaud was in compliance with the Sexual Offences Act.” In the Minister’s own words, the only consideration that attended the recruitment process was “the benefits of adding another experienced doctor to our roster at the GPHC,” even though, again according to the Minister, there were “circumstances” that clearly cautioned against going ahead with the appointment. Here, Dr Ramsammy appears to be admitting to a level of recklessness in the process that seems to be reflective of an appalling lack of professionalism. This alone appears to warrant some measure of independent investigation.
By asserting in his statement that the matter is “behind us” Dr Ramsammy is doing no more than expressing a fervent desire that a serious blunder for which he appeared to have little choice but to accept personal responsibility, go away as quickly as possible. Surely, however, there is much more explaining to do. Was there, for example, some compelling pressure to appoint Dr Persaud even in the face of what Dr Ramsammy concedes was ample reason to suggest that it was not the fit and proper thing to do? And if Dr Persaud’s appointment did indeed fly in the face of evidence that his past had disqualified him from holding such a position, did those directly responsible for going ahead with the appointment seriously believe that in the fullness of time his past would not have caught up with him or, perhaps more to the point, with them?
Finally, how plausible is the Minister’s explanation that, in the final analysis, it was his failure “to offer advice to the GPHC” on the provisions of the Sexual Offences Act that lies at the heart of the matter. Is it not entirely reasonable to assume that the various professionals, including medical professionals ought to have been sufficiently familiar with the provisions of legislation that have a direct bearing on their professional responsibilities to understand the implications of Dr Persaud’s appointment? Were they and the administrative professionals who handled the appointment not themselves acutely aware of the relevance of such a piece of legislation?
The buck may have stopped with Minister Ramsammy but there is good reason to suggest that there were others involved in the process who acted recklessly, unprofessionally or both. There are those who, long before the issuance of the Minister’s statement were inclined to the view that the appointment of Dr Persaud was much more than an error in judgment, and the statement would have done nothing to change their minds.
