Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh yesterday set new “ground rules” for his interaction with the media as he announced a new weekly press conference on the health sector.
Deyalsingh, who spoke at length of guidelines and being called up to 30 times per day by radio, television and print, said the volume of calls was too much.
Instead of the calls, Deyalsingh said, he could be reached either by email or at the 10 am Friday press conferences to be scheduled by his ministry.
“This is where all of you can come every Friday at 10 o’clock and ask your questions. How does that sound?
“The love affair can grow and continue with these guidelines.”
Stressing that he wanted to be as open and as factual as he could be, the minister said while he understood deadlines, this was the way things would be going forward.
“Very often the media calls me because they have a deadline to write a story and it is a complex issue and they want a quote from the minister.
“I’ll give you an example, so that you can understand my position. I got a call two Saturday nights ago at 8.30 in the night. A reporter for a daily newspaper calls me at 8.30 on a Saturday night. He says minister, I am writing a front page article for tomorrow’s Sunday edition on a speech given by the treasurer of the medical board on the previous Wednesday,” Deyalsingh recalled.
“So the treasurer gave a speech Wednesday and I am assuming that the treasurer would have researched his speech, refined it over a number of days. So the media was sitting on this and it contained a quote into allegations of sexual abuse by doctors. And I am called at 8.30 on a Saturday night to make a quote on an explosive issue like that. I simply told the reporter I cannot make an off-the-cuff statement on such an explosive issue.”
He said situations like this were the reason for the new “ground rules” as to how he would be communicating with the media.
He gave additional advice.
“When you are following stories your first port of call is not the Minister of Health, your first port of call is to the CEO or Medical Chief of Staff of the particular hospital or the particular RHA.
“A reporter called, can you comment on a case of gastroenteritis, a five-year-old child in Mt. Hope. Is it realistic for a Minister of Health to know about every single headache, sprained ankle or every single case?
“You have to ask yourself if that is newsworthy in the first place.”
In response yesterday, the Media Association of T&T said it would first look at the facts before commenting.