Tag Archives: Healthcare

The soucouyant, douen and La Diablesse have been doing the night shift for generations locally. Now they must compete with commercial horror houses, plastic skeletons, battery-operated witches and pumpkins. Naipaul would have cast a withering glance at our “mimic men”. The American-style buckets of candy have found a willing audience …

Mrs M died last year. I remember the vegetables from her husband’s garden (including my first dragonfruit) and the delicacies that she meticulously prepared. She was a lovely woman who watched Ask the Doctor with religious fervour. She started visiting for her diabetes and I became close to her family. …

Imagine her beside the hospital bed, handbag slipping off one shoulder, phone vibrating with messages from work. Her father is recovering from a stroke and needs assistance with daily living. His tablets have changed and she is handed a prescription with handwriting that old schoolmasters would have disdainfully dismissed as …

The prescription for healthy living was flawless, if I do say so myself. Grilled fish, fresh vegetables, fruits bursting with antioxidants, legumes, thirty minutes of exercise each day, eight hours of sleep, less stress, avoid all the fried foods that have become staples in our diet, take medications that may …

Covid-19 was a masterclass in socioeconomic inequities but heatwaves have also ignited pervasive disparities in our society. The elderly, those living alone, children, low-income communities, homeless, outdoor workers, athletes, stray animals and those with chronic illnesses bear the brunt of heat-related risks. Their limited access to air conditioning, inability to …

The half-used insulin vial was wrapped in a stained cloth and tucked inside a small purse. She had carried it through the sweltering heat, on a maxi and then on foot, to reach the clinic. “Doctor, I know the sugar high,” she said. “But tell me something. Where you want …

There is a person living somewhere in Trinidad and Tobago who may one day save your life. You do not know their name. You may never meet them. You will never invite them to your wedding. They will never attend your birthday celebration. They will never appear in family photographs. …

As a newly minted doctor fresh from postgraduate training in the United Kingdom, I returned home brimming with confidence. I was brash, full of textbook knowledge and ready to tackle any medical challenge that came my way. Little did I know that one of my most memorable patients would teach …

The photographs were difficult to ignore. Long lines outside the Seventh-day Adventist Hospital. Elderly patients waiting patiently in chairs. Family members guiding parents and grandparents through crowds. Faces filled with hope, anxiety and exhaustion. All for cataract surgery. Not cosmetic surgery. Not experimental treatment. Not some futuristic robotic procedure available …

There is a phrase patients love to hear. And one that doctors are quietly relieved to say. “Your blood tests are normal.” It lands gently. Reassuring. Final. Almost like a verdict in your favour. You’re fine. Sometimes, you’re not. Because “normal” is one of the most comforting words in medicine. …

I have a question—a few actually. They are related to the policies at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, commonly known as Mt Hope hospital. I was genuinely perplexed at the procedures regarding patients who had been admitted through the Accident and Emergency portal. People complain about the waiting period …

It has been one of those weeks. The kind that leaves a residue. Murders that shock, then settle uneasily into the background. A parliamentary inquiry that veers, unexpectedly, into something resembling theatre complete with shameless “track changes”—as if oversight itself required editing. And now, the reports from Cumuto. Each story …