The North Cen-tral Re-gion-al Health Au-thor-i-ty, NCRHA, has re-ject-ed claims made by the Trinidad and To-ba-go Reg-is-tered Nurs-es As-so-ci-a-tion, TTR-NA, sug-gest-ing wors-en-ing pa-tient out-comes with-in the re-gion-al health au-thor-i-ty.
In a me-dia re-lease is-sued to-day, the NCRHA said on-go-ing im-prove-ments in pa-tient flow and ser-vice de-liv-ery showed mea-sur-able progress across the re-gion de-spite long-stand-ing fi-nan-cial and op-er-a-tional chal-lenges in-her-it-ed from the pre-vi-ous ad-min-is-tra-tion.
The Au-thor-i-ty said mor-bid-i-ty and mor-tal-i-ty fig-ures im-proved from 275 deaths record-ed in Jan-u-ary 2026 to 206 deaths record-ed in April 2026.
The NCRHA al-so re-port-ed in-creased sur-gi-cal op-er-a-tions, re-duced wait-ing times for ad-mis-sions from Ac-ci-dent and Emer-gency De-part-ments to wards, im-proved clean-li-ness and work-ing con-di-tions, and a re-duc-tion in nurs-ing ab-sen-teeism from ap-prox-i-mate-ly 20 per cent to 18 per cent.
The re-sponse comes af-ter so-cial me-dia claims made by the TTR-NA con-cern-ing con-di-tions with-in the health au-thor-i-ty and pa-tient care out-comes.
Ac-cord-ing to the NCRHA, its Board of Di-rec-tors, which took of-fice in Au-gust 2025, in-her-it-ed se-vere fi-nan-cial con-straints, wide-spread op-er-a-tional in-ef-fi-cien-cies, bro-ken-down med-ical equip-ment and non-ex-is-tent main-te-nance pro-grammes.
The Au-thor-i-ty said hun-dreds of mil-lions of dol-lars were owed to sup-pli-ers for main-te-nance, med-ical equip-ment and es-sen-tial ser-vices, with some sup-pli-ers halt-ing ser-vices be-cause of un-paid bills.
This, the NCRHA said, re-sult-ed in short-ages of crit-i-cal sup-plies, in-clud-ing lab-o-ra-to-ry reagents, and de-lays in equip-ment re-pairs.
Among the fi-nan-cial is-sues iden-ti-fied were more than $124 mil-lion paid to a jan-i-to-r-i-al com-pa-ny over two years with-out ten-der or con-tract, ap-prox-i-mate-ly $250 mil-lion paid to se-cu-ri-ty com-pa-nies over a ten-year pe-ri-od with-out ten-der or con-tract, more than $350 mil-lion owed to over 300 com-pa-nies, and about $98 mil-lion be-ing paid an-nu-al-ly in over-time wages “with-out ac-count-abil-i-ty and pro-duc-tiv-i-ty”.
The NCRHA al-so out-lined op-er-a-tional de-fi-cien-cies af-fect-ing pa-tient care, in-clud-ing long wait-ing times for surg-eries, sig-nif-i-cant sur-gi-cal and di-ag-nos-tic back-logs, de-lays for CT scan and MRI ap-point-ments, ex-tend-ed clin-ic wait-ing times, de-te-ri-o-rat-ing con-di-tions in Ac-ci-dent and Emer-gency De-part-ments, and bro-ken-down med-ical equip-ment.
The Au-thor-i-ty said dras-tic cost-cut-ting ini-tia-tives and tighter fis-cal man-age-ment in-tro-duced in re-cent months cre-at-ed the fi-nan-cial ca-pac-i-ty to ex-pand health-care ser-vices and ad-dress in-her-it-ed back-logs and op-er-a-tional de-fi-cien-cies.
Mea-sures in-tro-duced in-clude Sat-ur-day op-er-at-ing the-atre ses-sions, ex-tend-ed week-day the-atre hours un-til 6 pm, over-time ser-vices for CT scans and MRI scans, ad-di-tion-al nurs-ing sup-port, over-time com-pen-sa-tion for health-care per-son-nel, and in-creased sur-gi-cal op-er-a-tions, in-clud-ing can-cer and car-diac surg-eries and treat-ment for stroke pa-tients.
The Au-thor-i-ty al-so an-nounced the im-ple-men-ta-tion of a $75 in-cen-tivised al-lowance rate for reg-is-tered nurs-es.
“The Au-thor-i-ty main-tains that no pa-tient op-er-a-tion must be un-nec-es-sar-i-ly post-poned and wait-ing times must not be-come un-favourable to mem-bers of the pub-lic seek-ing health-care ser-vices,” the re-lease said.
The NCRHA ac-knowl-edged nurs-es who vol-un-teered to work ex-tend-ed shifts to main-tain con-ti-nu-ity of pa-tient care and said at least 50 ad-di-tion-al nurs-es had been in-ter-viewed and re-cruit-ed over the past two months to strength-en staffing lev-els and im-prove nurse-to-pa-tient ra-tios.
The Au-thor-i-ty said that with-in nine months, many long-stand-ing is-sues had al-ready been ad-dressed and the NCRHA was now strate-gi-cal-ly po-si-tioned to con-tin-ue ex-pand-ing med-ical ser-vices and im-prov-ing health-care de-liv-ery through-out the re-gion.
NCRHA, TTRNA, patient care, Trinidad health, medical reform, hospital management, healthcare outcomes