The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has con­firmed that an em­ploy­ee has been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion—but did not name the in­di­vid­ual or spec­i­fy the cir­cum­stances prompt­ing the ac­tion.

How­ev­er, the em­ploy­ee is un­der­stood to be promi­nent physi­cian Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh. His sus­pen­sion fol­lows the pub­li­ca­tion of a sharply satir­i­cal opin­ion col­umn in the Trinidad & To­ba­go Guardian last Fri­day, ti­tled The Em­per­or’s New Hos­pi­tal.

In a re­lease is­sued Sun­day morn­ing, the SWRHA said, “An em­ploy­ee has pro­ceed­ed on leave to fa­cil­i­tate an in­ter­nal, fair and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a mat­ter of com­pli­ance with the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s gov­ern­ing law un­der the RHA Code of Con­duct and the rel­e­vant poli­cies. This de­ci­sion was made in ac­cor­dance with our com­mit­ment to up­hold­ing the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty.”

It added, “At this time, the Au­thor­i­ty is un­able to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails, as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed.”

Dr Teelucks­ingh con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that he had been sent on leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, with the mat­ter now in the hands of his at­tor­neys.

His col­umn skew­ered the cul­ture of hos­pi­tal “un­veil­ings” and po­lit­i­cal fan­fare, sug­gest­ing that new fa­cil­i­ties are opened with­out staff, equip­ment or prop­er sys­tems to serve pa­tients.

The sus­pen­sion has sparked sharp po­lit­i­cal back­lash. For­mer UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray called it “an out­ra­geous and dan­ger­ous re­sponse to truth-telling.”

“This is a cow­ard­ly act that pun­ish­es in­tegri­ty, mocks free ex­pres­sion, and sends a clear sig­nal: pro­fes­sion­als must stay silent, even as the sys­tem fails the peo­ple it is meant to serve,” Paray said in a state­ment.

He de­scribed Dr Teelucks­ingh as “no ju­nior doc­tor,” but a re­spect­ed con­sul­tant, lec­tur­er, and re­searcher with a long record of pub­lic ser­vice. “His de­ci­sion to pub­lish that satir­i­cal col­umn, know­ing full well the risk, speaks to un­com­mon courage and deep civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Paray said.

“The col­umn was not per­son­al, not defam­a­to­ry, and not po­lit­i­cal in the par­ti­san sense. It was a fa­ble—clever, bit­ing, and un­for­tu­nate­ly ac­cu­rate. Every doc­tor, nurse, tech­ni­cian and pa­tient in Trinidad and To­ba­go knows the sit­u­a­tion he de­scribed.”

Paray list­ed ex­am­ples echoed in the col­umn: hos­pi­tal build­ings opened with fan­fare but lack­ing ba­sic equip­ment or per­son­nel, and pa­tients suf­fer­ing in an un­der-re­sourced sys­tem. He ques­tioned whether the Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go would re­main silent.

“This is not about one col­umn or one doc­tor,” he said. “This is about whether our in­sti­tu­tions can tol­er­ate scruti­ny… whether we are still a so­ci­ety where prin­ci­ple means more than pub­lic re­la­tions.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh have so far been un­suc­cess­ful.