By Prior Beharry
CRIME is now a public health emergency.
So said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at a press conference at the Piarco International Airport just before he left for a CARICOM meeting in Suriname on Saturday.
It follows ten killings in less than 24 hours.
He said: “I think in Trinidad and Tobago the time has come for us to declare violence as a public health emergency and we need to find solutions to treating with violence in our population.
“If there was a disease that was killing people the way people are being affected by violence in our population, we would have had no difficulty labelling it a public health emergency.”
Dr Rowly said every day there was violent crime.
He said, “It is something we are going to focus on more. We are going to have to find the resources.
“You must remember that we are already focusing on it. We are deploying significant resources to it and we are concerned that we are not seeing any abatement in the personal conduct of many people which results in these unnecessary loss of life.”
