The original article can be found in Trinidad Newsday By SEAN DOUGLAS
FUTURE rape-victims could benefit from a specialist team to be set up at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) under an informal deal struck at a public consultation yesterday at the Nalis Library, Port-of-Spain.
The event was hosted by the board and management of the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA), whose CEO Judith Baliram-Ramoutar keenly vowed to support a proposal from audience member, Marcus Kissoon, of the Rape Crisis Society.
Kissoon urged that the PoSGH be serviced by a Sexual Abuse Team (SAT) that he said could include specialist professionals such as counsellors and trauma experts. Baliram-Ramoutar replied, “We’d like to help you set up this programme.” She hoped the NWRHA would be the catalyst for such an initiative to be set up at other RHAs.
The well-run and well-attended two-hour session saw questions and suggestions regarding the NWRHA’s role, with most contributions coming from staff at NWRHA hospitals such as PoSGH and St Ann’s Hospital. Specialist Dr Maria Bartholomew urged that all C-sections being done by house officers be supervised by senior doctors.
In reply, NWRHA chairman, Dr Edison Haqq, said that while TT has an unacceptably high general maternal mortality rate of as much as 50 deaths per 100,000 live births, the PoSGH has done intensive work to prevent such deaths, resulting in zero maternal deaths at last count.
Mental illness was a big concern of many present, with Dr Haqq lamenting that contrary to the desired trend of decentralisation of the provision of services, the capital city has seen a re- centralisation of mental health facilities with the shift of services formerly offered by PoSGH’s Ward Eight up to St Ann’s Hospital.
He stressed the importance of this topic, saying TT has the Caribbean’s second highest suicide-rate, and each year has 2,000 persons inflicting self-harm. Haqq promised more training to health professionals in the early detection of mental ill-health, plus the training of more mental health doctors. An audience member called for more focus on men’s health such as prostate cancer, and was told robotics could do prostate surgery.
