Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has as­sured cit­i­zens that he is leav­ing of­fice in good health, putting to rest lin­ger­ing con­cerns about his well-be­ing that have sur­faced in re­cent years and spec­u­la­tions that ill health was the main rea­son for his de­par­ture.

In an in­ter­view at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day, which was broad­cast on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley said while he has faced med­ical chal­lenges in the past, he is step­ping away from po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship on his own terms and in a sta­ble health con­di­tion fol­low­ing heart surgery four years ago.

“I could re­port that I have noth­ing else to re­port, I’ve been checked and the last time I had was last Sep­tem­ber and I have a good bill of health and that is why I can say to you now that it has played no role,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment comes af­ter years of pub­lic con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous an­nounce­ments of over­seas med­ical check-ups and time tak­en off for treat­ment.

He ex­plained: “I had some dis­com­fort and I knew by my nor­mal an­nu­al ex­am­i­na­tions that I was build­ing up some plaque in an artery and over a pe­ri­od of years it got to a point where I was told now this has be­come con­cern­ing and you may want to, when you go home, go to your lo­cal doc­tors and they said when the plaque got to a cer­tain lev­el that year’s re­port was we need to look at this now.”

Dr Row­ley said dis­com­fort he ex­pe­ri­enced while on the golf course prompt­ed him to seek ur­gent med­ical treat­ment. In 2021, he un­der­went a coro­nary an­gio­plas­ty to open clogged ar­ter­ies.