Appealing to Government to build the Point Fortin Hospital, Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon has said she cannot return to constituents and ask them for a third term as a People’s National Movement (PNM) MP without the hospital being built. “If not by this administration, any other,” she added in Parliament yesterday. Speaking on a motion calling for the hospital to be built, Gopee-Scoon said the Point Fortin Hospital should have been built by the former PNM administration.
“But it was not done,” she admitted. Gopee-Scoon said she had met nothing “on the table” when she entered government, but by the time the PNM left office she had brought the matter to a certain point. “I admit I’m at fault on the basis of collective responsibility, but my duty is to get this Government to do it,” Gopee-Scoon added. Saying she was putting her political life on the line over the issue, she said she cannot again approach the residents of Point and ask them for a third term if the facility were not built.
Gopee-Scoon, who traced the origins of the issue, appealed to the People’s Partnership (PP) administration several times in her contribution, saying all she wanted was a two-minute statement from the Health Minister on it. Several ministers assured her across the floor that it would be done.
She said the PP’s 2010 manifesto listed the construction of the Point hospital as policy. But she said despite placing that hospital first, the Government, over the term, brought up construction of other hospitals in Siparia, Penal and Arima. She noted that during the local government election campaign, building facilities in Arima and Sangre Grande was priority as the PP targeted those seats, but ended up otherwise. “You placed us (Point Fortin) first, but never fulfilled it,” she said.
She said former health minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis paid no attention to the issue, adding she had invited Baptiste-Cornelis to tour the current facility but she sent a team instead. Gopee-Scoon said current Health Minister Fuad Khan, however, did come to the area and examined sites and proposed alternatives. She said then—in October 2011—he promised it would be built. Gopee-Scoon noted changes in Khan’s subsequent public statements, however, including talk of “upgrading the current hospital”.