THE cancellation of a meeting between Prime Minister Allen Chastanet and the executive of the St. Lucia Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA) yesterday seems to have increased the acrimony between the two sides — the latter calling the meeting’s annulment “disrespectful”.
But the Prime Minister’s Office is having none of this, saying that the expectations of the scheduled meeting were not met.
Senior Communications Officer in the Prime Minister’s Office Nicole Mc Donald yesterday told The VOICE that while the government is very open to meeting with the Association’s executive, the planned meeting was supposed to have been with the general membership of the Association and not the executive alone.
“We were very surprised that only 10 persons were coming to the meeting. We were under the impression that we would be meeting with the general membership, not just the executive,” Mc Donald said.
She added that while the meeting was planned for the Prime Minister’s Office, her side knew that the space would not be conducive for a meeting of the entire membership and so, by Thursday, had already planned to move to another location.
“It was important for us to meet with the general membership,” Mc Donald said.
The government’s letter to the Association, addressed to its President Dr. Alphonsus St. Rose, dated 6 June, 2018 indeed spoke of the prime minister facilitating a meeting with the membership of the Association yesterday.
The letter, signed by Cabinet Secretary Ben Emmanuel, did indicate that the government wanted to meet the entire membership.
However, Dr. St. Rose told reporters that it was disrespectful of the Prime Minister to unilaterally decide not to meet with the executive — the legitimate and constitutionally elected representatives of the country’s medical and dental fraternity.
He said, “We are here for a scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister, a meeting scheduled some three weeks ago. He has unilaterally decided to cancel the meeting 20 minutes prior to its scheduled commencement, on the basis that he wants to dictate to the Association who he should meet with.”
The president said, “It is the executive that decides on the way forward as far as the activities of the Association are concerned and the Prime Minister cannot dictate who he meets from our Association, and when.”
He added, “We are professional people. We have left patients and taken the time out to be here. We find it very discourteous to have unilaterally canceled the meeting. We want to make it very clear to St. Lucia that the disrespect ends today. The SLMDA is going to meet and we will decide what the way forward is,” St. Rose said.
The meeting was to discuss the position paper that the executive had issued on the country’s healthcare situation.
