By Chantalé Fletcher
FORMER UNC MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh is calling for the findings of the Covid-19 investigative team to be made public.
If not he said the report will be a “pappyshow”.
The committee is led by Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences Professor Terence Seemungal and was set up by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to report on the relatively high number of Covid-19-related deaths in Trinidad and Tobago. It has received a three-week extension.
In a release on Thursday, Dr Gopeesingh said, “The committee must also thereafter provide weekly reports/updates to the public of their findings and recommendations to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, instead of waiting until the end of the three week period to do so.”
He said the request of the team for an additional three weeks to complete the probe has proved them to be a sham.
The former MP for Caroni Central said, “It is a continuation of the Rowley Government’s continued psychological assault on the grieving, traumatised, helpless families of the thousands of citizens who have tragically lost their lives to Covid-19 in the past 20 months.”
Dr Gopeesingh said the Covid-19 hospitals had become virtual killing fields as a result of the Government’s prolonged, medically negligent casualties.
He added that bodies continued to pile up in funeral homes, sometimes being left for weeks as relatives were forced to suffer the indignity of inhumane final rites for their loved ones.
Dr Goopesingh said, “No committee could therefore possibly investigate and report on Rowley’s nonexistent, nonfunctional, and disastrous and failed so-called parallel healthcare system in just one week.”
He said, “Even as the Committee takes three more weeks to complete its probe, T&T continues to suffer an alarmingly high, inexplicable daily Covid-19 death rate, which ranked among the highest in the world. Thus far, over 3,300 Covid-19 patients have tragically lost their lives since 2020, at a current average of 15 deaths per day, while the daily infection rate remains equally high.”
He said the committee would take the next 28 days to produce their reports, about 400 more Covid-19 patients are at risk of dying needlessly, which was intolerable and criminal.
He also called on the Committee to probe the statement by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Parasram that Covid-19 hospitalisations are on the decline because of the population’s “immunity to the virus.”
The Covid committee was set up by Dr Rowley and includes the former dean of the Medical Sciences Faculty at UWI Prof Emerita Phyllis Pitt-Miller; public health specialist Dr Anton Cumberbatch; consultant anaesthetist and intensive care specialist Dr Vidya Dean; and Director of the Caribbean Centre for Health Systems, Research and Development, Faculty of Medical Sciences Prof Donald Simeon.
They are expected to complete their findings on February 17.
