Rowley Gaslighting, Distractions and Dangerous Madman’s Rant
I am astonished to have read reports in this week’s Guardian and Express newspapers quoting Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley as once more shamelessly trying to blame the Leader of the Opposition for his own gross incompetence and ongoing failure to take urgent, effective and long overdue action to remedy the collapsed public health sector of Trinidad and Tobago.
This was prompted by the Express Newspapers’ scathing condemnation of Rowley’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Welch Report into the public health sector (Express Editorial, June 17, 2022).
Any right-thinking, sane and sensible Prime Minister would have comprehensively and sensibly addressed the serious issues raised in this matter.
Rowley, however, chose instead to shamelessly and incredulously claim that his Government’s refusal to act on the Welch Report was due to the Opposition Leader not naming members to sit on a proposed Joint Select Committee of Parliament from since 2017!
This is truly bewildering, even for PM Rowley, who appears to have long lost touch with the reality of Trinidad and Tobago.
His baffling, ridiculous accusations amount to nothing more than a dangerous madman’s rant—dangerous, because it deals with the health and wellbeing of the population, and is therefore literally a matter of life and death for 1.2 million citizens of this country.
The facts are as follows:
In 2015, almost immediately upon assuming Government, Rowley appointed a seven-member committee headed by consultant surgeon Winston Welch to review the public healthcare system delivery. He simultaneously scrapped all the progressive, effective measures that the Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led People’s Partnership Government had successfully implemented from 2010-2015, to the detriment of the public health care system.
This Welch Committee took two whole years to deliver their report, despite having significant resources and manpower at their disposal (paid for by taxpayers), and only after the Opposition UNC harassed them non-stop to complete the task. The Welch Report was finally laid in Parliament in 2017, and one of the recommendations was that the practice of doctors working in both the public and private care sectors be banned.
A motion to establish said Joint Select Committee of Parliament to deal with it was debated on Wednesday, May 31, 2017, and in my contribution as the then MP for Caroni East, I noted that the Welch Report without depth and substance, and sending it to a JSC would essentially be a waste of time.
I pointed out that the best people to talk to about the health system were the estimated 200 medical specialists in the country and I noted that there was no indication in the Welch Report that they had been consulted in the preparation of the report.
I also pointed out that the issues dealt with in the Welch Report were management issues and I further questioned the motive for bringing that motion to the Parliament, since there had been exhaustive reports on the local health system, including the Gladys Gaffoor Commission which produced 1,500 pages of recommendations.
These facts remain true to this day. Indeed, the majority of the Welch Report’s recommendations were no different from the Gladys Gaffoor Commission of Inquiry report of under 2007-2008. This CoI was commissioned by the then PNM Government of the day, of which Rowley was a senior Minister, and the PNM has questionably failed to this day to implement its recommendations.
In fact, it was the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Administration of 2010-2015 which actually implemented some of the Gaffoor recommendations, resulting in significant and meaningful advances in the public health sector for the first time in a decade.
Notably, the Welch Report had two other key recommendations—to find an international partner to manage the Couva Hospital, and consider establishing an Offshore Medical School, the latter of which was also contained in the PNM’s election manifestos from since 2010.
To this day, the Rowley administration has failed to do both. Will he now crazily blame the Opposition Leader for this, too?
The fact remains that as Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, and Head of the Cabinet for the past seven years, Rowley has the sole responsibility for setting and implementing policy in health and every other sector.
The Rowley Government therefore does not need parliamentary approval in any form or fashion to implement the recommendations of the Welch Report. It simply requires the Minister of Health to formulate these recommendations into a policy document and bring to Cabinet for approval, and then implementation.
Rowley’s blamegame of the UNC is therefore yet another attempt to lie and gaslight the population, in an attempt to cover up his own woeful and dangerous incompetence, inability and overall unwillingness to simply do his job and govern the country, as he is paid to do by taxpayers’.
If he seriously wanted to implement the Welch recommendation on the doctors and their dual employment statuses, he could have easily appointed an inter-Ministerial Team of Cabinet to consult with the 300 plus senior doctors across the country and come up with a workable solution.
He and his entire Cabinet, especially his incompetent, unqualified, failed Health Minister, are all clearly devoid of any real answers to the various problems that confront the health sector, and indeed, the country. The latest health report Rowley commissioned into his Government’s ongoing failure, the 2022 Seemungal Report into the Covid-19 mismanagement, is testament to this fact.
Here, due to the Rowley Government’s criminal negligence, pervasive incompetence and dangerous mismanagement of the Coronavirus pandemic, over 4000 citizens died from Covid-19, in what remains one of the highest Covid-19 death rates in the world per population.
Now that he is once more being confronted with the deadly consequences of a collapsed public health system, Rowley knows that his own blatant dereliction of duty, and his failure to fulfil his Constitutional mandate of governing the country is once more on full display.
He is therefore trying to find an escape route by blaming the Opposition Leader, as usual, but nobody is buying into his shameless gaslighting and distraction tactics anymore.
If he wants the UNC’s assistance in running the country, given our track record of unparalleled successful and progressive development of the country in every single sector in during our two terms in Government office, (1995-2000 and 2010-2015), then he must call a General Election now.
Indeed, by so doing, he will for once serve the interest of the citizens of this country, and allow them to fulfill their longstanding desire of getting rid of him and his failed, destructive Government before they completely destroy our country and its people.
Dr Tim Gopeesingh
Senior Gynecological Oncologist,
Former Dean of the UWI Medical School
Former Cabinet Minister and MP