BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — The St Kitts-Nevis government has denied being behind efforts to force Chief Medical Officer Dr Patrick Martin into retirement as the controversy continues here over stem cell research.

“Dr Martin is an exemplary public servant, he is well-known and well-respected across the region and indeed, internationally and I am confident that even with all of the news circulating around this matter that Dr Martin when called upon… will continue to contribute to nation building and to the health issues of St Kitts and Nevis,” health minister Eugene Hamilton said in an interview on WINN FM radio.

“I would not be surprised if there might be persons who might… put the two together but I would think that… when I said to you earlier that Dr Martin had…quite a lot of accumulated leave, which in fact will take him all the way to November…it tells you that there were other matters to be discussed and decisions to be made, so I would not say that what happened on Monday is directly responsible for the pre-retirement of Dr Martin,” Hamilton insisted.

The former chief medical officer, who has been working for three years past the mandatory age of retirement, was instructed last Thursday to proceed on retirement leave with immediate effect. He believes that the incident at the JNF hospital over the stem cell project was the trigger for being asked to retire.

According to Dr Martin, while stem cell research will “become more the order of the day” his office was the competent authority to oversee the project as allowed for under the Public Health Act.

“I have no problem with stem cell,” he told WINN FM also adding “stem cell research or experimentation must be guided by ethical safeguards and other safeguards.”