Article 119B of the Constitution provides for the establishment of Parliamentary sectoral committees on foreign relations, natural resources, social services and economic services. The Article was one of the welcome innovations from the last constitution reform process and was clearly intended to allow bipartisan focus on key sectors insulated from the rancour of heated debates in the National Assembly. In addition, well-functioning committees could convene hearings on troubled areas such as GuySuCo as the Economic Services Committee (ESC) has done. They could go even further by organising visits to the locus of their investigations as in the case of the ESC’s tour of the troubled Skeldon sugar estate.
Over recent months, the Social Services Committee has been making useful fact-finding visits to hospitals throughout the country. In recent months it visited the New Amsterdam, Diamond and Linden hospitals. These visits have uncovered a variety of maladies affecting the hospitals ranging from malfunctioning equipment to the shortage of drugs to staff deficiencies.
On Wednesday, the Committee embarked on a visit to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GHPC). This would likely have been its most challenging assignment considering the scale of the institution, the fact that it is the country’s main referral facility and the well-known problems that have beset it over the year.
All went mostly according to plan until the Chairman of the Committee, Dr Vindhya Persaud visited the GPHC bond. After initially being allowed to enter the bond, Dr Persaud was unceremoniously told to leave as a visit to it had not been part of the schedule. This was told to her brusquely by the Chairman of the GPHC board, Kesaundra Alves and Administrator Allan Johnson and their action was taken upon the instruction of fellow committee member, Minister in the Ministry of Health, Dr Karen Cummings.
The denial of access to the bond by the Minister, Ms Alves and Mr Johnson must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Dr Persaud was discharging her function as chairman of a constitutionally mandated committee. As long as she and her committee members were not engaged in some absurd intrusion such as visiting the operating theatre while it was in use, they should not have been denied access to any part of the hospital. This is a public institution interfacing with hundreds of people each day. Their representatives in Parliament – from both sides of the House – have the right to a full examination of the state of hospital. There should be no secrets and certainly not pertaining to the bond. The insistence by Ms Alves et al that a programme had been worked out for the visitors and would not be deviated from sounds like an extraction from a ministerial edict in Pyongyang rather than enlightened interaction with a parliamentary committee in an open society.
It is clear that this Ministry of Public Health and the GPHC have much to hide as it pertains to pharmaceutical bonds. In the two years that this government has been in charge, there has been scandal after scandal in this arena. First, the public was treated to the thoroughly disreputable deal for a Charlestown bond with Mr Larry Singh. The government is yet to scrap this deal for some inexplicable reason. Second, its former Minister of Public Health, Dr George Norton was caught twice lying to Parliament about the use of the Charlestown bond leading to him having to make an abject apology to the House. In the second case, a dramatic visit to the bond by MPs proved that that it was not being used as Dr Norton had stated. A third visit to the said Charlestown bond found that the section being utilized by the GPHC for the storage of drugs was in an unsatisfactory state, raising questions about its handling of the facility and what might be happening at its main bond.
On top of all of this, the GPHC and the Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence have been entangled in a scandal relating to the emergency procurement of more than $605m in drugs for the GPHC in complete violation of the country’s procurement law. Moreover, a number of the drugs procured cannot be deemed to be emergency supplies. Interestingly, Minister Lawrence has mandated Ms Alves to conduct a probe of the $605m matter from the GPHC’s perspective. A separate probe of this matter is also being conducted by the Public Procurement Commission and Minister Lawrence has since commissioned a forensic audit into the Ministry of Public Health’s procurement system with help from PAHO/WHO.
Worsening the situation are the ongoing complaints from around the country about the shortage of drugs and other supply chain issues. For all these reasons and more Dr Persaud’s committee should have been allowed access to the bond subject to any measures to ensure that its functioning was not impeded. The manner in which the chairman was shooed out of the bond, aside from the disrespect shown to the committee, suggests that both the Ministry and the GPHC have something to hide. In this day and age, that type of behaviour is an anachronism which will be easily exposed.
