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THE EDITOR: The debate over what should be done with the Debe UWI campus continues with no end apparently in sight. I think cool heads should prevail and constructive discussions between the government and UWI senior personnel are paramount.
The position of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in respect of the purpose for which the campus was built must figure prominently in any discussion. The main one of course being to facilitate students from south and central Trinidad attending various UWI faculties, including the Faculty of Law.
People who say otherwise have not had to experience the hardship and cost of travelling from south/central on a daily basis or have to bear the additional cost of renting housing in and around St Augustine. Persad-Bissessar has consistently stated her vision, ie, to lessen the burden on south and central UWI students.
My concerns lie with the proposed Global School of Medicine (GSM).
If the UWI Council agreed in 2017 to go the way of the GSM, why has it taken eight years to commence?
The principal has stated that the first batch of medical students is expected to start classes in August. If so, the number of students admitted and the forex (foreign exchange) derived therefrom must be made public so as to appreciate the income to be derived vs expenditure.
Where are these foreign students to be housed when student accommodation facilities do not appear to be ready?
What is the state of readiness of classrooms to teach preclinical medical students, which require more than just the four walls of a regular classroom?
Has a full complement of staff for preclinical instruction and other ancillary staff been hired? And where will the funding for this come from?
When the students have graduated from the preclinical component, where do they complete their two-year-plus clinical training?
I have read where former principal Brian Copeland has said that the clinical training was expected to take place at the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility and the San Fernando Teaching Hospital.
With due respect to Prof Copeland, it seems that he has not taken into consideration that clinical medical training needs a fully functional “general” hospital, ie, offering emergency medical/surgical services, inpatient medical and surgical wards, operating rooms/theatres, out-patient clinics, to begin with. And as far as I am aware, the previous administration had no plans to open such services at Couva and it would require a significant supply of funding for the government to provide such services any time soon.
The teaching hospital is hardly a teaching hospital and is more a service hospital. When I visited that facility after it had just been commissioned, there was hardly if any teaching taking place there. Has that changed since?
Even if all of the above needs are met, who will be the clinical tutors? The UWI Medical Faculty staff, both preclinical and clinical, mostly work at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex. There are a few clinical staff/lecturers at the Port of Spain General Hospital and even less at the San Fernando General.
The regional health authority (RHA) staff, both consultants and registrars, have no obligation to teach medical students and many have said so, except for a few who were appointed associate lecturers. It would be asking a lot of the present UWI preclinical and clinical staff to teach students of the GSM as well.
And what about the curriculum? As I understand it, the only reason foreign students will attend medical school in Trinidad is to gain admittance to medical residency programmes in the US. So the curriculum would have to be specially designed to facilitate this. Has this been done?
I think initially, priority must be given to facilitate local students from south, central and any other part of Trinidad to access tertiary education at least cost and disruption to them and their families’ lives by opening the Debe campus. This does not close the door on the GSM, but much more planning and preparation need to go into it to make it a reality.
BENI N BALKARAN
retired senior lecturer
Faculty of Medical Sciences,
UWI, St Augustine
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