Fyz­abad MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has crit­i­cised the Min­istry of Health for a lack of prop­er plan­ning in the roll­out of its na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme.

He said the roll­out this week at the na­tion's health cen­tres was bun­gled and po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing.

In a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, Bo­doe said den­tists have been stopped from as­sist­ing as vol­un­teer vac­ci­na­tors in the na­tion’s mass vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve ac­cord­ing to a let­ter sent to them by the Min­istry of Health dat­ed June 11.

The rea­son giv­en in the cor­re­spon­dence to the vol­un­teers is “cir­cum­stances be­yond our con­trol.”

Ac­cord­ing to Bo­doe, “My un­der­stand­ing is that the Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials have sud­den­ly re­alised that the cur­rent law will not pro­vide in­dem­ni­ty for any is­sues that may arise from den­tists and oth­er vol­un­teers giv­ing jabs.”

He said this comes af­ter sev­er­al den­tists and oth­er vol­un­teers, in re­sponse to an in­vi­ta­tion from the Min­istry of Health, at­tend­ed a vac­ci­na­tion train­ing pro­gramme on June 1 af­ter which they were al­lowed to give vac­ci­na­tions at the var­i­ous venues through­out the na­tion.

Bo­doe said he was told the roll­out of over 7,000 vac­ci­na­tions at the Di­vali Na­gar site last Sun­day was fa­cil­i­tat­ed in part by many of these said vol­un­teers and it was an event at­tend­ed and sanc­tioned by Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

“It has been well es­tab­lished that a rapid vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme is our on­ly way out of this pan­dem­ic in T&T. The de­lay in ob­tain­ing ad­e­quate num­bers of vac­cines would have left the Min­istry suf­fi­cient time to pre­pare a prop­er vac­ci­na­tion roll­out pro­gramme. On top of the bun­gled and po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing roll­out wit­nessed at var­i­ous health cen­tres through­out the coun­try, we are now pre­sent­ed with an­oth­er set­back due to lack of prop­er plan­ning.”