In one telling sentence in the report of the Commission of Enquiry into the health sector, the commissioners note: “Despite the rapid approach of its 2020 deadline to achieve developed nation status, Trinidad and Tobago finds itself, in 2007, confronted with the same problems that have affected the health sector long before it attained Independence status.”

For most of the country’s citizens, this unfavourable report will perhaps not come as a surprise. Many will have their personal ‘horror’ stories about  some experience they had at one of the State-run health institutions.

The report tells a tale of mismanagement and insufficient funding. It appears not to absolve anyone except for those who must work in terrible conditions while seeking to deliver the best service they possibly can in the circumstances.

And, there are probably many people like that within the system – even though the standard of health care seems not to have progressed at all.

Concerning the inadequate funding, the report refers specifically to the San Fernando General Hospital but it can be inferred that particular problems faced by other institutions, including Port of Spain General, exist because insufficient monies have been allocated to these facilities. The situation does raise questions about the place of health care in the Government’s list of priorities.

Why is   expenditure on the health sector so inadequate when the country continues to enjoy substantially high levels of revenue? Then there are the corrupt financial practices, which are not really a problem of money but the result of the worst sort of greed.

It means that the necessary checks and balances have not been applied and that persons charged with particular managerial responsibilities have not been attending to them as well as they should.

Laws need to be upheld and those who have been given responsibilities must be called to account.

Positive developments

While the Commission determined that the problems in the health sector have remained the same for decades, it surely is not the case that there have been no advances in the health sector or that good things have not happened there over the years.

Emergency medical services seem to have improved, and the (chronic disease assistance programme (CDAP) continues to make medications available at no cost to a significant number of people who may not have been able to afford them.

Positive developments have certainly taken place, many lives have been saved and, at the troubled health institutions, there are still doctors and nurses with exemplary attitudes.

Unfortunately, too often the good actions have not been sustained, with the health sector reverting to what it used to be.

The problems in the health sector, however, suggest the need for change at fundamental levels. The improvement that is lacking in the health sector is absent because attitudes have not changed.

Today’s Gospel tells the story of the widow of Nain, whose dead son was being taken for burial. It is a story about two camps of people – a “considerable number” who, although supportive of the widow, had no means of changing her situation, and the followers of Jesus.

The Lord enters into her pain and gives her back her son – and hope.
In following Christ, each of us is called to a similar kind of self-giving so that all citizens may experience through us the love and hope with which God continues to gift his people.

Proper health care at all our nation’s institutions will be an indicator of our maturity; the lack of it is a measure of how far we remain from achieving the 2020 Vision.