Five-member team to probe Trinidad’s handling of COVID
(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has put together a fivemember team to evaluate the State’s handling of the COVID-19 virus “with a professional eye” and present their findings in one week.
The Joint Trade Union Movement wrote to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi on Thursday detailing their suggestions as an alternative to the vaccine policy and one of their suggestions was an independent panel to vet the Government’s data and statistics on the COVID-19 virus in the country. The JTUM had asked that they nominate two of the people in the committee and that a chairman be appointed by the President. But on Saturday, the Prime Minister said that he selected the five independent experts without any consultation with the trade union movement.
The Prime Minister selected a team to be led by Prof Terrence Seemungal who is the dean at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West
Indies. The team also comprise Prof Emerita Phyllis Pitt-Millier who is a consultant anaesthetist and Intensive Care specialist and a former medical faculty dean at UWI, Dr Anton Cumberbatch a former chief medical officer and a Public Health Specialist, Dr Vidya Dean a consultant anaesthetist and Intensive Care Specialist and Prof Donald Simeon, a director at the Caribbean Centre for Health Systems Research and Development. Simeon is also a professor of Biostatistics and Public Health Research at UWI.
The team was given the scope to identify the number of patients who died from COVID-19 and demarcate those deaths by number and types of comorbidities including obesity. They will also categorise their findings by ethnicity, age and gender.
The team has been given one week to also complete the following mandate:
*To review the definition of ‘COVID19 Death’ used by the Ministry of Health for consistency with WHO guidelines and standard practice; and comment on the different methodologies for calculating case fatality rate (CFR) and make recommendations for the appropriate methodology for Trinidad and Tobago.
*Examine the Admission, Discharge and Transfer (ADT) policy and procedure to determine the impact, if any, on clinical outcome.
*Determine if the treatment and management protocols adopted by the Hospitals are consistent within WHO guidelines and international best practice, with access to adequate:
a. Levels of Staffing appropriate in a mass response to a global pandemic; b. Essential Medicines; c. Laboratory and Diagnostic Imaging Services;
d. PPE; Oxygen; other.
*Review the standards of care of COVID-19 patients, based on acuity, for uniformity and consistency within and across hospitals in the Regional Health Authorities (RHA).
*Identify any other factors that may affect clinical outcomes including, but not limited to:
a. suboptimal home treatment, for eg, utilising non-WHO approved therapeutics;
b. delayed presentation to health facilities;
c. efficiency of the transfer system in transporting patients from home to hospital and inter-hospitals in the RHA health network.
The JTUM has been pushing back against the Government’s vaccine policy and is instead calling for people to be given the choice to vaccinate or not.
While the Prime Minister roundly dismissed parts of the statement, he said he was glad they penned their side.
“It allows the Government to see the breadth of thought and more importantly the alternative that is available,” the PM said.