Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Promi­nent en­docri­nol­o­gist Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh will con­tin­ue to pub­lish his opin­ion columns in the T&T Guardian and host his Ask the Doc­tor show on CNC3 al­though the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) is in­ves­ti­gat­ing his con­duct fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of his satir­i­cal com­men­tary, The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal.

Teelucks­ingh’s sus­pen­sion was re­voked on the di­rec­tion of Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day. He main­tains that he did noth­ing wrong.

The SWRHA had placed Teelucks­ingh, a con­sul­tant in In­ter­nal Med­i­cine, En­docrinol­o­gy and Di­a­betes, on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave af­ter he wrote a col­umn about the po­lit­i­cal fan­fare sur­round­ing hos­pi­tal open­ings, ar­gu­ing that new fa­cil­i­ties of­ten lack staff, equip­ment, and prop­er sys­tems to serve pa­tients.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Teelucks­ingh said as a med­ical doc­tor he swore an oath to serve, which en­tails not just treat­ing dis­ease but al­so speak­ing out when sys­tems are fail­ing, when si­lence could cost lives, and when truth is un­der threat.

“But let me be clear, I have done noth­ing wrong. I ex­er­cised my right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion—a right en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the same con­sti­tu­tion that pro­tects every cit­i­zen’s voice, every pro­fes­sion­al’s con­science, and every doc­tor’s du­ty to ad­vo­cate,” he said.

Thank­ful to be re­in­stat­ed, Teelucks­ingh said he re­turns to work not bit­ter but bold, and not si­lenced but stronger.

“I will con­tin­ue to host Ask the Doc­tor every Thurs­day night at 8.30 on CNC3. I will con­tin­ue to write my Fri­day columns. Some may be even bet­ter than The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal.

“I will con­tin­ue to speak for those who are un­heard: for the sick, the el­der­ly, the chil­dren, the work­ing moth­ers, the for­got­ten fa­thers, and for you. I am, and al­ways will be, a hum­ble ser­vant of the peo­ple,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh ex­pressed deep grat­i­tude for the out­pour­ing of sup­port from the pub­lic, col­leagues and friends, as well as the me­dia, not­ing that jour­nal­ism at its core is the oxy­gen of democ­ra­cy.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Deyals­ingh not­ed the SWRHA’s de­ci­sion to place Teelucks­ingh on leave and ex­pressed his com­mit­ment to free speech.

“Whilst I find his opin­ions and writ­ings some­times con­tro­ver­sial, I am a firm be­liev­er in free speech, even at my own per­son­al ex­pense. In that be­lief, I have di­rect­ed that Dr Teelucks­ingh be im­me­di­ate­ly re­in­stat­ed, and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be con­duct­ed whilst he is on the job,” he said.

The SWRHA had ear­li­er said Teelucks­ingh’s sus­pen­sion was in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate a fair and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion and was in line with its com­mit­ment to pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty.

Fol­low­ing Teelucks­ingh’s re­in­state­ment, press free­dom ad­vo­cate Wes­ley Gib­bings de­scribed the sus­pen­sion as a vi­o­la­tion of free­dom of ex­pres­sion. He said while em­ploy­ment guide­lines ex­ist, free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed.

“Un­less there was an ex­plic­it pro­vi­sion in Teelucks­ingh’s con­tract pro­hibit­ing such ut­ter­ances, it seems to me a vi­o­la­tion of free­dom of ex­pres­sion oc­curred,” Gib­bings said.

Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) in­ter­im pres­i­dent Dale Enoch urged cau­tion dur­ing the elec­tion sea­son, not­ing that height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ties could in­flu­ence re­ac­tions to jour­nal­is­tic and ed­i­to­r­i­al con­tent. He said the sit­u­a­tion bor­dered on a press free­dom is­sue and point­ed out that colum­nists ex­press opin­ions and Teelucks­ingh’s piece ad­dressed an is­sue of na­tion­al im­por­tance.

“He is en­ti­tled to his opin­ions. We know about writ­ing things that we con­sid­er to be the truth and that the pub­lic should know, and this is his way of do­ing so,” Enoch said.