By Chantalé Fletcher
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley says there are 104 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds and not 52 at this time in Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking in the House of Representatives on Friday, during the prime minister question segment, Dr Rowley responded to Opposition MP for Naparima Rodney Charles.
Charles asked: “Will the Prime Minister inform the House why there are only 52 Intensive Care Unit beds for a population of 1.4 million people when some $5 billion have already been spent on the Covid-19 pandemic thus far?”
Dr Rowley said T&T was one of the few countries in the world that has a parallel healthcare system.
He said, “The ministry’s response in 2020 started with two ICU beds in Couva specifically for people afflicted from Covid-19.
“ICU bed capacity has since significantly increased from 35 beds to include an additional 31 ICU beds at ward level and an additional 16 beds at the accident and emergency level.”
He said this represented a 100% increase.
Dr Rowley said the ministry further activated 16 more ICU beds in Trinidad and six more in Tobago. “This would bring our total ICU capacity to 104 and not 52,” he said.
He said, “One hundred and four ICU beds, Madam Speaker, in the nation.”
The prime minister said the increase in ICU bed capacity included the procurement of the requisite equipment such as ventilators, High-Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) and 100 ICU trained nurses.
Dr Rowley added that beds in the hospital were more than just the physical structure that a patient would lay but more importantly the healthcare givers.
He said, “So for each bed you add to the system, you add a significant number of highly trained personnel.”
In a supplemental question, Charles asked if the PM could give a breakdown of the ICU beds and auxiliary staff in the “parallel system and those in the system related to Covid.”
Dr Rowley replied, “I just said that in response to Covid we created a separate and parallel healthcare delivery system.
‘We started with two ICU beds for that, we are now at a 104 and we have been dispensing service to the Covid inflicted persons in a parallel way. So I don’t understand the question. The question is meant to confuse the public.”
On Wednesday, Principal Medical Officer of Institutions, Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards said there were 65 ICU beds in the parallel healthcare system with five of those in Tobago.
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