PRESIDENT of the Medical Board of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Steve Smith, says the dissent among members is being caused by the Health Ministry’s insistence on bending the rules so Government can hire Cuban doctors.
He said the common belief maintained by the majority of council members has always been that foreign doctors must write a medical exam and an English exam if their native tongue is not English before they can register to be part of the local medical fraternity.
’For the life of me, I don’t know what got into the council members that night (last Tuesday). One minute they’re red, the next minute they’re green,’ he said yesterday in response to questions on why the decision to employ foreign doctors to fill the gap within the health sector had created so many factions within the board.
A meeting organised by the board to discuss the issue ended prematurely after doctors stormed out because of their differences on Tuesday night.
In fact, president of the Trinidad and Tobago Medical Association, Dr Solaiman Juman, told the Express they never got around to discussing the issue, as the meeting erupted after several members questioned the legality of the meeting that was hosted by the MBTT at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mount Hope.
’It was a very contentious issue that led to allegations and counter allegations towards council members...it seemed as if nobody on the council could agree on anything,’ Juman said.
An informed source told the Express eight of the 11-member council were told by Smith to call the meeting to discuss the issue. Smith, however, said he never called the meeting, despite allegations by several other council members that he did.
Secretary general of the Medical Practitioners Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Balkaran Ramkissoon, who was in unison with Smith, said the resolution clearly states that foreign doctors should write the exams and it needs to stay that way.
According to Smith, the Cuban doctors are not inferior, but it would be a grave injustice to allow one set of doctors from a country with stark operating differences to practice on the people of Trinidad and Tobago, even if Prime Minister Patrick Manning chooses to seek medical treatment in that country.
