Re­turn­ing to pub­lic health lead­er­ship af­ter near­ly three decades, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh has been ap­point­ed chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA), vow­ing to ad­dress long-stand­ing sys­temic is­sues with­in the RHA.

Speak­ing to Guardian me­dia fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment yes­ter­day by Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Gopeesingh ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue serv­ing T&T af­ter a ca­reer in pol­i­tics dat­ing back to 1992.

“Health and ed­u­ca­tion have al­ways been my cor­ner­stones,” he said. “It’s an ho­n­our to once again sup­port the health sec­tor, along­side the Prime Min­is­ter and par­ty lead­er­ship I’ve been proud to serve with since the 1990s.”