THE Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) has partnered with Alexandra Imaging, Purivo Dialysis, Rush Medical Services, and Valley Medical Centre to offer free medical screening to the public.
The project was launched on Sunday at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain and caters to everyone living in Trinidad and Tobago, including migrants.
At the launch, which was streamed live on Facebook, all speeches were translated into Spanish.
The screenings will be available every Saturday in Trinidad and every Wednesday in Tobago, in February
Over the past week, PDP has transformed the ground floor of its Second Street, Barataria headquarters to accommodate the medical professionals and their equipment. In Tobago, the public can visit its PDP headquarters at Port Mall in Scarborough.
The project, which is called the Watson Solomon Duke Initiative, focuses on providing high-quality primary medical and dental care with the objective of being an accessible, dependable alternative while decompressing the public system and providing a reproducible and scalable model for healthcare.
PDP said it has assembled a multidisciplinary team of general and specialist doctors. These include dentists, nurses, medical administrators, physiotherapists, nutritionists and optometrists.
The aim is to have an “accessible, efficient, comprehensive assessment with an all-inclusive experience,” PDP’s deputy political leader Kezel Jackson said.
“We have developed a community outreach team, designed to provide primary care in rural and low-income communities and for persons who are differently-abled throughout TT.”
At the launch, Duke said the initiative was a humanitarian effort. He said he has no intention of attacking the government as he believes it was doing its best.
"We must do what we can at the same time. This is therefore a humanitarian effort and not a political effort," he said.
He said the hot topic of discussion is crime and 600 murders last year but few are talking about the silent killer – hypertension, and other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
Duke said the team intends to go into communities to reach people who have mobility challenges.
"Even in the most remote areas we would go. We do not desire a building, we would operate from a tent," he said.
He called on other organisations to come forward and join the initiative to ease the wait of people seeking urgent care.
It is hoped, through this project, vulnerable and high-risk communities would have screenings, assessments and medical evaluations at their fingertips.
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