Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and So­cial Pro­tec­tion Ian Pol­lard re­mains in “good spir­its” de­spite be­ing ward­ed at St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, ac­cord­ing to his sis­ter Heather Pol­lard.

Pol­lard pro­vid­ed the up­date on Sun­day dur­ing a vig­il held in the as­sem­bly­man’s Ma­son Hall elec­toral dis­trict.

Pol­lard suf­fered a med­ical emer­gency over two weeks ago and was hos­pi­talised at Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the pri­vate fa­cil­i­ty in Trinidad, where his re­cov­ery con­tin­ues.

The vig­il was well at­tend­ed by Pol­lard’s con­stituents as well as sev­er­al mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, in­clud­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

Pol­lard’s sib­ling, who vis­it­ed him in Trinidad over the week­end, urged the pub­lic to stop spec­u­lat­ing and in­stead pray for a full re­cov­ery.

She said, “He is in a very good spir­it. He is stronger. He is the best I have seen him since this en­counter, and for that we re­main prayer­ful, we re­main hope­ful and we wan­na say thank you Je­sus for what has been hap­pen­ing.”

While not di­vulging what caused her broth­er’s hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, she said he is not out of the woods yet.

She said the fam­i­ly has been bom­bard­ed with calls and mes­sages from peo­ple spread­ing false in­for­ma­tion.

“So when you hear ad­verse things, don’t even en­ter­tain it. Just pray, be­cause that is what we need right now.”

She thanked Au­gus­tine, As­sem­bly­men and Min­is­ters for their sup­port and prayers.

As he joined in the prayers, Au­gus­tine quot­ed a scrip­ture from the book of Mark about a pal­sy-strick­en man un­able to get through a thick crowd to touch Je­sus.

He said the man was as­sist­ed by four friends, but not­ed Pol­lard has many more who will stand by him through this or­deal.

“I am glad that there are friends gath­ered here this evening to pray,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said “no bad mind” could get in the way of the faith of Chris­tians who are ap­peal­ing for a mir­a­cle.

Oth­er at­tend­ing as­sem­bly­men in­clud­ed Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett, Sec­re­tary of Sport Keigon De­noon and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Ack­el Franklyn.