RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a his­toric march to high­light ris­ing COVID-19 deaths, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts is now wheel­ing a black cof­fin through the streets of Trinidad, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to im­prove the health sec­tor.

Roberts, of La Brea, start­ed his march at Erin short­ly be­fore 7 am to­day, and is ex­pect­ed to walk along the SS Erin Road, through Pa­lo Seco, San­ta Flo­ra, Siparia, Pe­nal, Debe and South­ern Main Road, all the way to Port of Spain.

Roberts said the ris­ing COVID-19 deaths was in­dica­tive of the prob­lems be­ing faced in the na­tion's hos­pi­tals. The ac­tivist who had con­test­ed the La Brea seat on a UNC tick­et and lost dur­ing the last elec­tion said peo­ple were dy­ing be­cause of mis­man­age­ment at the na­tion's hos­pi­tals.

"Our health sec­tor is in sham­bles. We con­tin­ue to lose our loved ones on a dai­ly ba­sis," Roberts said.

He added: "This cof­fin sym­bol­izes the deaths of our loved ones. Feel free to place a flower or a wreath or some­thing black on this cof­fin. We will be com­ing to your com­mu­ni­ty pass­ing on the old road. Stand in protest about what is hap­pen­ing in this coun­try."

COVID deaths have been on the rise with a rolling av­er­age of over 500. On Thurs­day, T&T record­ed the high­est num­ber of deaths since the start of the pan­dem­ic.

Three days ago, Ri­car­do Goolcha­ran, an In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer at the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), chained him­self at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to protest a short­age of re­sources at the na­tion's hos­pi­tals.

Goolcha­ran told Guardian Me­dia that the cur­rent ra­tio at hos­pi­tals was one nurse to 30 pa­tients, not­ing that in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards rec­om­mend­ed one nurse to four pa­tients.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Idi Stu­art, has com­plained that nurs­es were in short sup­ply, not­ing that nurs­es sta­tioned at the par­al­lel health care in­sti­tu­tions were in­ex­pe­ri­enced and un­able to give qual­i­ty pa­tient care.

Skilled nurs­es, he said, were leav­ing in droves be­cause of de­plorable work­ing con­di­tions at the hos­pi­tals.

Guardian Me­dia will up­date this sto­ry as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.