Milking those on death's door

This is an open letter to the Minister of Health.

A friend of mine needs open-heart surgery. This has been already been paid for by the Ministry of Health and the services for surgery passed to Caribbean Heart Care, a private supplier of health services to the Ministry of Health.

What baffles me is why Caribbean Hard Care is further charging my friend $10,000 privately for the use of a cell saver machine, to be used during surgery to recycle the patient’s own blood.

 

Fast Facts on cell saver machines:

·         Patients end up with healthier blood when their own blood is recycled and given back to them during heart surgery.

·         The more units of banked blood a patient received, the more red cell damage researchers found.

·         The damage renders the cells less able to squeeze through a body’s smallest capillaries and deliver oxygen to tissues.

·         Blood is recycled using machine called a cell saver, which cleanses it and separates out the red blood cells to return to patient.

·         Recycling own blood costs less than using banked blood.

 

This is clearly – and without any shame – an effort to ‘milk’ more money out of the patient. I have a number of problems with this.

1.    Contractually, if Caribbean Heart Care cannot provide the full services to the Ministry of Health, then it has no business accepting contracts. The opportunity should be given to other entities to bid for the opportunity to provide full services necessary for the surgery.

2.    If Caribbean Heart Care must charge extra ‘service charges’ on top of the price quoted to the Ministry of Health, then this should be made plain to both the patient and the Ministry of Health prior to the surgery being scheduled.

3.    Once the surgery scheduled, it is prejudicial to the patient to be asked to pay such a huge sum on short notice. Most patients who rely on the Ministry of Health to cover the surgery costs are on low income – else they would have done the surgery privately. To fork over $10,000 on short notice is Caribbean Heart Care’s unconscionable opportunity to take advantage of a life and death situation to fatten its own coffers.

Sadly, this appears to be a new development in the practice of providing surgery from Caribbean Heart Care. I say this because in 2017, a close relative also had open heart surgery from the self-same heart Care and there were no additional costs. One can only wonder what changed in the past 5 years.

The big question remains – is the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health aware of Caribbean Heart Care charging these extra ‘fees’? If the answer to this is yes, why is this allowed to happen? Why does the ministry not cover the full fees, considering that most of the victims held to ransom by Caribbean Heart Care cannot afford to pay these extortionate sums?

I look forward to a full explanation from the Minister of Health, but you will forgive me for not holding my breath lest I end up 6 feet under.

Where Israel Rajah-Khan went wrong… Again!

I note with interest, coupled with amusement, Mr Israel Rajah-Khan’s attempted chastisement of attorney Brian Baig (Express, 30 June 2022 –https://trinidadexpress.com/opinion/letters/vulgar-claims-against-legal-system/article_51b5cda2-f801-11ec-858e-33817f45e547.html)

Mr Baig has given a semi-appropriate response (Express, 2 July 2022 – https://trinidadexpress.com/opinion/letters/the-facts-speak-for-themselves/article_bc6124ba-f998-11ec-aea9-27ee4e1a5bd3.html ).

Taking Mr Rajah-Khan’s article first:

Mr Rajah-Khan apparently takes umbrage over Mr Baig’s highlighting that several prominent Indo-Trinidadians are or were before the courts on charges, but were/are unsuccessfully prosecuted by the PNM. He then went on to point out that the charges are proffered by the DPP, and heard before an independent judiciary.

Where Mr Rajah-Khan obviously went wrong is that the evidence does not stack up on this position. In the latest Privy Council’s judgment, John Henry Smith and another v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago and others (2022) UKPC 28 (Smith judgment), the Law Lords at the Privy Council certainly made a mockery of Mr Rajah-Khan’s position. In other words, they delivered a serious ‘calpet’ on Mr Rajah-Khan’s perspective.

In paragraph 2 of the judgment, the judges clearly pointed out that the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau (ACIB) was established within the Ministry of the Attorney General under then AG John Jeremie. This makes it a political entity. It is this political entity which brought charges under the Piarco 1-4 cases. For Mr Rajah-Khan to say “I can state categorically that there is not a single criminal case in this country whereby a political party prosecuted—be it PNM, NAR or UNC Partnership” demonstrates that he did not read the judgment at all!

In the Smith judgment, the Privy Council judges also clearly pointed out that the judiciary was not independent in any way whatsoever! Not only was there bias on the part of Sherman (Shermie) McNicolls, he was financially and in other ways beholden to John Jeremie, a PNM politically appointed Attorney General!

Note that under the Integrity in Public Life Act, Basdeo Panday an Indo-Trinidadian, remains the ONLY person charged, despite hundreds of others over the past 10 or more years failing to file the mandatory records. And of course, the Privy Council also ruled that under Sherman McNicolls, there was apparent bias in Mr Panday’s trial due to the political obligation Shermie placed himself when accepting financial and other benefits from the AG, John Jeremie. The Smith judgment merely confirms what was raised and proven 12 years or so before!

Additionally, Mr Rajah-Khan states “All citizens, regardless of race, class or creed, if charged with a criminal offence, must receive a fair trial”. Of course, this is what should happen. We all know that what should happen is different from what does happen. Shermie proved that over and over. I have long blogged about his corruption. That much is not in dispute, and is in the public domain if anyone should choose to do a little research. Given that he was the Chief Magistrate, this makes it all the more appalling!

The Smith judgment also showed that High Court and the Court of Appeal in Trinidad and Tobago applied less-than-stellar reasoning. One can only wonder why the population is reluctant to turn to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final appeal court, given that some of its judges come from the same pool… But that is a story for another day.

Mr Rajah-Khan also mentions “two other prominent East Indian attorneys’ names were mentioned in his sordid letter but their criminal cases are before the court, and thus sub judice, and it would be unethical to mention their names in my letter.”

The sub judice rules apply when mentioning something currently before the court will influence the outcome of the trial, or in other words, prevent a fair trial. Surely the names of the attorneys so charged are in the public domain? Their matters will be listed on the court website. Thus, why would mentioning their names prevent a fair trial?

Mr Baig himself made a tactical error in his response to Mr Rajah-Khan. Instead of addressing the issues Mr Rajah-Khan brought up, he misdirected himself to point out a 19-point list of PNM corruption, which have not been prosecuted. That may be relevant to political point-scoring but fails to address the core issues. If Mr Baig wished to set Mr Rajah-Khan right, refute the points he made, not introduce new tangential issues.

I urge Mr Rajah-Khan to be more circumspect in voicing his opinion. After all, he has 43 years’ experience at the Criminal Bar.

The Threatener

I’m going to start off this letter in an unexpected way… do you remember those way-back-when TV series and movies with titles such as: The Equalizer, Eraser, Viper, etc.?

Well, now we have a character called the Threatener. No lie.

His modus operandi (MO in crime law parlance) is to threaten those who are critical of him. You ask him uncomfortable questions, or say something seemingly critical of him, his first words to you are words to the effect (wtte) that ‘you seem to have inside knowledge – alternatively, in-depth knowledge – of the issue, you will be contacted for questioning’.

You are then forced to undergo several hours of questioning, which has nothing to do with the original issue, or the matter at hand, but… you have dared criticise the next best thing to God. How dare you?!

The Threatener gives truth to the words of D Bonhoeffer – killed by the Nazis for expressing his thoughts too freely:

“… the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one.

“Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

Tying the two threads together, we see that not only is the Threatener highly dangerous, he certainly lacks maturity of thought to be able to handle critique and criticism. I imagine I can write and publish this only, as one reader pointed out, I am ‘safely ensconced’ 5000 miles away.

I will digress to another point. True learning comes from maturity. One must have maturity to be reflective, understand what that reflection is about and change one’s behaviour to demonstrate that learning has taken place (Schön, Bawden et al). Clearly, the Threatener hasn’t developed sufficient maturity to face uncomfortable truths about himself.

But I think we have enough for a Netflix series...  Go figure.