THE EDITOR:
IT is extremely unfortunate that those who are so often guilty of the most serious kinds of professional misconduct would attempt to assassinate the character of an exemplary public officer.

Over the weekend of December 13, 2005, MPATT placed paid advertisements in the newspapers, with the calculated intention of launching a most villainous attack on a public officer who has served this country with distinction for over 35 years.

The mischievous ad carried the caption:

“All public servants and citizens be aware - is this quality care?”

It would be very difficult if not totally impossible to find any other group of so-called unionists anywhere in the health sector who are single-handedly responsible for compromising the quality of healthcare.

And we make this statement recognising that there are many medical professionals in this country and the Public Service who deserve to be respected.

However, there are those who call themselves trade unionists, who undertake no research and recklessly seek to malign other healthcare professionals without any justification whatsoever.

Here are the facts: Mrs. Valerie Alleyne-Rawlins; a qualified Registered Nurse specially trained in Intensive Care & Haemodialysis since 1975, was selected as being the most eminently suitable person from among seven candidates considered for a contract position of Senior Nursing Officer, Health Sector Reform Programme in 1993.

At that time, she held the position of Acting Nursing Supervisor of the Department of Intensive Care and Nephrology at San Fernando General Hospital -- an area in which she was professionally trained.

As the Acting Nursing Supervisor (1989 - 1993), she was directly responsible for co-ordinating two Intensive Care Training Programmes at the San Fernando General Hospital and one Orientation to Intensive Care Medicine Programme for new House Officers (i.e. doctors) who were brought into the Intensive Care Unit.

As Nursing Supervisor at the San Fernando General Hospital, she was responsible for management of this nation’s second largest hospital on evenings and weekends, in addition to heading the Intensive Care and Nephrology Unit.

She had previously obtained a Certificate in Nursing Education (1983) and served as an instructor on the Nursing Assistant Programme for three years.

In addition, her university training includes:

* A Diploma in Health Administration from Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA;

* A Certificate in Quality Management from UWI Institute of Business;

* A Certificate in Public Relations from Cipriani College of Labour & Co-operative Studies;

* Certificate in Nursing Ethics -- University of the Virgin Islands;

* Certificate in Supervising Management -- Management Development Centre;

* A Certified Licensed Midwife;

* A course in Managing Quality through Regulation undertaken in Washington DC and a long list of courses in Health Education (USA), Quality Assurance (California Hospital Medical Centre), Advanced Trauma Life Support (American College of Surgeons), Project Design Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) etc.

This uniquely dedicated public officer has received several awards in recognition of the consistent excellent quality of her performance.

Here is just a sampling:

* 1981 - Most outstanding Nurse - San Fernando General Hospital;

* 1987 - Excellence in Nursing Practice - Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nursing Association;

* 1987 - Achiever of the Year - Ministry of Health;

* 1991 - Irene Kathleen Montenegro Award for - Consistent Delivery of Quality Care - Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nursing Association;

1992 - Outstanding Nursing Leadership and Management - Ministry of Health;

1996 - Honorary Award for outstanding contribution to the development and future growth of the Higher Education Division of NIHERST; and

2002 - Josepha Wouter Award for Extraordinary Nursing Leadership in the Caribbean - by the Caribbean Nurses’ Organisation.

In 1988 and 1994 respectively, Mrs. Alleyne Rawlins’ skills in the area of Quality Health Service were refined via a PAHO Fellowship in Health Administration at Georgia State University and on IADB Fellowship facilitating attachment to the Department of Health UK to conduct a special six-week study Review on Health Reform.

Rawlins has been the architect of several protocols designed to ensure that quality systems and procedures become an integral part of our HealthCare Delivery Services.

The excellent quality of her work has been so impressive that PAHO secured the consent of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for her to conduct workshops in several regional jurisdictions.

In this context, she conducted: “Continuous Quality Improvement Workshops” for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and CARICOM Health Professionals in Dominica in the year 2002; “Improving Quality and Performance Workshop” for the OECS, Ministers of Health in St. Lucia, in the year 1999; and “Role of Nursing in Effecting Policy Changes in Health Reform Workshop” in Bermuda, in the year 1994.

The distinguished list of appointments and attachments held over the years by Rawlins would dwarf the credentials of any of the malcontents who have the audacity to attempt to sully her character. The bottom line is that she is eminently qualified, supremely competent and has acquitted herself with exemplary distinction.

We would have wished to present for your scrutiny and comparison (if that is at all possible) the profile of her detractors.

But it would be simply too distasteful to descend to such undignified depths.

However, you now have the facts and therefore you can easily differentiate between gems and garbage.

 

DEY de say

De ship sinking

It really so?

Look how much time

She use up she oil money

And help us out

And give us aid

All over the Caribbean

Like we

She is home to so much Guyanee

She is home to so much ah we Grinee
And Vincie and Bajee

She is Land of the Hummingbird too

Nourishing the Doc, the Chief Servant

The Birdie, Karl, his father Henry, P.K-D., Walcott

And so many more

Cradling Crawfie, Jean Pierre, Claude Noel

Mansing Amarsingh, Darceuil, Lottie, the Yearwoods

Golfer Ames, the Naipauls

We een talk about Brian yet

The Prince of Port of Spain

Highest aggregate Test cricket score

Highest individual Test cricket innings

Highest individual First-Class cricket inings
In de whole world
Dat man ha to be great like Sobers and the Don

We already mention we boy Sparrow

What about the Grandmaster, Chalkie

Stalin, Shadow, Mello, Rudder, Maestro, Shorty

Indeed tribute to the Soca Warriors --

Dwight Yorke, Latapy, Stern John and company

FIFA World Cup ’06 here we come

Not just South, not just TnT

But all-ah-we

From across the Caribbean Sea

Onward to more glory!

Winston “Spree” and the only new

Musical instrument in the 20th Century

In and between a li’l hiccup

Like Boysie Singh and Malik

But life, and living

Besides kaiso, soca and steel-pan

Parang with ones like Scrunter and the Lara brothers

Black cake, pelau and pork.

THE EDITOR:
OUR ancestors are weeping for Trinidad and Tobago.

They weep for our ignorance, arrogance, forgetfulness and our lost innocence.

They lament that we have forgotten the lessons of our past, that the concepts of brotherhood, community, neighbourhood, morals, values and the oneness that made us who we are seems to be fading into oblivion.

The heroes of the past, the simple and not so simple people, those who were willing to give their lives for change are crying.

Those who toiled and sacrificed, so we could enjoy the fruits of their labour, they cry because we fail to understand or appreciate the battles fought in the towns and villages, the streets and fields of long ago.

We are betraying our ancestors.

They weep for the young men in the killing fields of the northern hills.

They lament for the sons and daughters, kidnapped and brutalised. Hearts aching, they watch as the lives of so many are ruined and constantly washed away by the floodwaters of the Central plains. Shuddering in disbelief, the ancestors wonder at the housing settlements in prime agricultural land and the destruction of the hills.

The spirits of the 22 murdered in the Jahagee Massacre and of the Orishas, Shouter-Baptists, Hindus and Muslims, long gone, cringe at the banning of Divali celebrations and the destruction of the Ramleela sites in Couva and Tarouba.

They question if the battles for cultural space, fought so long ago, were in vain.

Indeed, the spirits curse the rogue elements in the Protective Services and the corridors of power, which divide and tear apart for their own ends.

Pleadingly, the ancestors call out to us, for every creed and race to truly find an equal place and the watchwords to become a reality, so lives long gone would not have been wasted. Yes, the ancestors are weeping for a land fertilised by the blood of the indigenous peoples, the slaves, the indentures and the European colonisers, seemingly not to have been shed in vain.

They beg us not to waste their lives, for if we forget the lessons of our ancestors, then we may have to fight the battles all over again. The tears they weep are tears of pure grief for a nation gone awry.