CARICOM, we thank you for allowing our people to live and travel freely within the region. Many enthusiastic young and not-so-young people will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

To all the Caricom heads of states, please next consider the important issue of universal regional health care.

There are hundreds of health insurance companies. If everyone paid into their elected insurance company, everyone could benefit from low cost, high quality medicines and high quality medical care. Gone would be the long waiting times for basic operations and clinical services in villages and communities throughout T&T.

If every adult pays a nominal fee into an insurance premium fund, e.g. $100 to $150 per month, this would benefit everyone, and health care could be affordable.

It is disgraceful how unsuccessful the T&T Government’s attempts are to provide free health care. Imagine the Forensic Centre refrigeration system is down and dead bodies cannot be stored. How awful is that?! Bodies have to be transferred to private funeral homes! NO! NO!

Poor and low-income people do not have high cash for expensive tests. Don’t talk about our women trying to pay for a mammogram: it is too expensive. Private Pap smear tests and prostate tests are all very expensive. X-rays are also expensive.

How can you not see for yourself, Dr Rowley and Mr Terrence Deyalsingh? No! No! you are in charge of running the country, you are in charge of taking care of our people; just do that.

The authorities must get all the medicines to the clinics and hospitals now! People who come for treatment all too often have to head back home, with the apology: ‘Sorry, we do not have that medicine’! No, Mr Deyalsingh, this is unacceptable.

The rich can flash their expensive insurance cards and even jump on a plane and head off to any part of the world for their precious health care relief, while the poor have to scratch the benches, and get sicker from not having the right meds. Why is it that only low-income people are blazed?

We need to re-think the plan of how to run a successful health care system. I can vouch for how it is done in Europe. Don’t think this system is way beyond our reach; no! There, all medical care is free-hospitals, blood tests, MRIs, CT scans, prosthetics, and every other scan possible.

Mr Deyalsingh, you need to pull your medical staff together and truly ask for their ideas. Everyone travels all over the world these days and people can see how health care is organised elsewhere.

Please do not dismiss this important topic. You could bring to Trinidad all the necessary medical equipment, and bring technicians from anywhere in the world, pay them well, and let’s get the show on the road. It can be done: our TT$60 billion budget can improvise a better system.

This vision also includes hospital beds, Hoyer lifts (a Hoyer lift is a mobility tool used to help seniors with mobility challenges get out of bed or the bath without the assistance of another person), the whole lot. The population of Trinidad and Tobago would be so relieved.

Universal Health Care is for all. Check out how it is done in Europe. The Netherlands has an excellent system. Make us happy and add this to your budget. Thousands would be happy to pay into this system.

Caroline Williams Morvant