Is the Tobago Regional Health Authority (TRHA) running an illegal organ-harvesting operation? This was the question posed on Tuesday during a media conference hosted by interim political leader of the Tobago Fowards Christlyn Moore. Moore held the briefing at her office in Maraval Road, Port-of-Spain, to highlight what she claimed were problems in the TRHA.
She listed the problems as undocumented corneal transplants, a rise in neonatal deaths and inefficiency in the ambulance system. “Is this an organ-harvesting operation that is being funded with government funds? Not withstanding the fact that it is helping people. It is. But what is the source? We have to ask the source because we don’t know,” Moore said.
Moore said the corneal transplants aroused suspicion and she was yet to see proper documentation for the cornea tissue which was being transplanted into patients. “Late last year there were several batches of corneal transplants that took place, all without documentation...for each operation. It led to staff saying they were concerned with the source of the corneas. We are not seeing any documentation that allows the corneas into the country, into the hospital,” Moore said.
She said there was no clear indication where these corneas were coming from because no cornea bank in T&T had been set up.
She said a donated cornea or corneas could be harvested from deceased persons. If the cornea had been harvested from a cadaver then there would need to be consent from the relatives of the deceased. However, Moore said, there was no documentation showing consent had been obtained to use the corneas.
“You would want to know if your dead relative’s parts were turning up in someone else’s body,” Moore said. Corneas can also be imported, but these would require licences and health certificates, which Moore said, were not readily available for review. Addressing the neonatal deaths, Moore said there had been an increase in infant deaths. She said there were 18 neonatal deaths over a 16-month period
She also questioned the reliability of Tobago’s ambulance service, saying before Tobago had only one ambulance, but ten were introduced to the island recently. She claimed that most of the technicians in the ambulances were not properly trained. Moore said she intended to file for the necessary documentation and explanations on the issues under the Freedom of Information Act.
Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan has dismissed all these claims. Khan said like Trinidad, Tobago received its corneas from a cornea bank in the US. “That is not a big thing. We get our corneas from different banks in the US. Cornea transplants have been done in Trinidad for a while now, and I am very glad that Tobago has started it. This operation is very run of the mill,” Khan said.
He added that he has not heard of any reports stating that there were 18 neonatal deaths over the past 16 months. “I don’t believe that. These figures do not sound correct,” Khan said. Addressing the ambulance issue, Khan said because Tobago was not very large, there was little need to have as many Emergency Medical Technicians because the island did not have as many traumas to deal with.
“The TRHA has been working well with the Ministry of Health. I have not gotten any reports from the THA or the TRHA,” Khan said. T&T Guardian was unable Tuesday and yesterday to contact an official from the TRHA or Claudia Groome-Duke, head of the Division of Health and Social Services in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).