FORMER health minister Dr Fuad Khan on Thursday criticised the transfer of doctors from the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility during the recent increase in covid19 cases.

In a statement, Khan said it was disturbing to learn that they had been replaced "with individuals who may not have the experience or the expertise necessary to deal with this crisis."

He was unsatisfied by the response given by North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) CEO Davlin Thomas that "the removal of these doctors from the parallel health system is a 'rotation cycle.'"

Khan claimed, "These four doctors have been reassigned completely and will no longer have any involvement with the covid19 patients (at the hospital)."

He argued, "The decision by the NCRHA not only threatens the quality of care being received by the patients at the Couva Hospital but the entire parallel health system as the persons best qualified to evaluate and assess the method of treatment have been removed from the programme entirely, and the persons who have been rotated into their place are now essentially starting from scratch."

He suggested that instead of removing the doctors, "Additional staff could have been added to allow a proper rotation within the hospital that retained the most experienced persons to carry on with their work."

Khan said when the hospital was built under the UNC-led People's Partnership coalition and even when the PNM took over its operations, the idea was for an element of higher learning to develop healthcare to be incorporated into it. He claimed the hospital is being run like "a health office, with only the bare minimum amount of healthcare being afforded to these critical patients."

The NCRHA met on the issue on Thursday.

Thomas could not be reached for comment. Up to press time, NCRHA officials said the meeting was still in progress.

On May 20, Thomas said, "The truth is that about three weeks ago, the medical chief of staff (at the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility) mentioned to us that he needed to have staff at the Couva Hospital rotated through the wider system because they were approaching burnout....they need to rotate them to give them a rest."

As a result, he said, "That's it. We just rotated them and eventually we will rotate them back. We will put them back into normal health care continuum and then eventually, we will put them back into the system."

At a news conference on May 22, the Prime Minister appealed to the Opposition to keep politics out of hospitals.