Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A group of par­ents of chil­dren at­tend­ing the Princess Eliz­a­beth Cen­tre gath­ered yes­ter­day out­side the fa­cil­i­ty, to ex­press their out­rage over a sud­den de­ci­sion by nurs­es to can­cel trans­porta­tion arrange­ments for chil­dren un­der their care.

The chil­dren, who have spe­cial needs, were sched­uled to par­tic­i­pate in the Cen­tral Games at the Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex.

How­ev­er, when they turned up at the cen­tre yes­ter­day, the nurs­es had can­celled the trans­porta­tion that was arranged to take them to the event.

This left par­ents scram­bling to make al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments, while voic­ing their dis­ap­point­ment over the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from med­ical staff and man­age­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to one par­ent, Moyza­lin Le­tren, the can­cel­la­tion was abrupt and they were giv­en no ex­pla­na­tion.

“We have no idea what is go­ing on. The nurs­es didn’t say any­thing. The ma­tron didn’t come to us and say any­thing. They just can­celled—just like that. Even yes­ter­day, if they had can­celled then, peo­ple would have known what to do to­day,” she added.

Many par­ents had tak­en the day off from work to ac­com­pa­ny their chil­dren, on­ly to be met with the sud­den change.

Le­tren not­ed, “I took a day off to spend time with my child, and now this hap­pens. But that’s their job. How could you tell me they don’t want to go when that’s what they’re get­ting paid to do? They’re sup­posed to go!”

“None of them came to apol­o­gise. None of them came to ex­plain. None of them came to tell us any­thing,” Le­tren added.

“This is dis­ap­point­ing for the chil­dren. They are the ones be­ing af­fect­ed. If there is an is­sue with the teach­ers or par­ents, deal with that sep­a­rate­ly—but do not af­fect the chil­dren. You all are get­ting paid to do some­thing. We deal with our chil­dren every day. You just have them for a few hours. So please, come out and do what you are get­ting paid to do.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact the ma­tron at the cen­tre but calls to the of­fice land­line went unan­swered.