Was M.O.H.’s Requests for Necessary Equipment Denied under the U.D.P.?

Marvin Manzanero

Minister Chebat made the revelations as Director of Health Services, Doctor Marvin Manzanero sat at the head table.  Under the Barrow Administration, Doctor Manzanero was the expert leading the charge against COVID-19, but during today’s press briefing, he took a backseat.  Doctor Manzanero, however, was asked about Chebat’s description of the former administration’s COVID-19 response.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“Minister Chebat mentioned something about that in terms of a budget. We did have, we would have request. That is the way it would routinely work. There use to be a task force where we would routinely as the Ministry of Health we did not chair, we shared it initially March, April and then that was shared by a C.E.O. in Human Development then. So that the Ministry of Health was one of the task holders where we would take our concerns and whatever needs we had. I think from the get go one of the key situations and the Ministry of Health technical team would allude to was an issue of finances were we recognized as a Ministry of Health that the elements of health we could only do some of it if we had finances and human resources. So some of the human resources we could not get limited to finances even in terms in trying to get some of the other items. So we would routinely take that to the Task Force in the first instance and then the Task Force will report to the Over Sight Committee and the Oversight Committee we basically served as an advisory and we requested on a weekly basis and the decision was taken higher than the Ministry of Health.”