Chief Minister Howard Quayle says a leading scientist who quit over disagreements with the government’s Covid testing policy was ’free to make her own decisions’.

Dr Rachel Glover, who helped to set up the Covid-19 testing lab in the island, announced her departure in Twitter last week.

Since then Health Minister David Ashford has been criticised for quoting a letter - without naming the writer - complaining the implication the testing regime was down to one person.

resignation

In the House of Keys on Tuesday, Julie Edge (Onchan) was given to ask an urgent question calling for a statement on Dr Glover’s resignation.

Mr Quayle said Dr Glover had been working alongside the pathology team for a ’number of months to support the Covid testing programme’.

’Dr Glover is free to make her own decisions in relation to her work at the Department of Health & Social Care and it would not be appropriate for me to discuss individuals’ contract details in this way,’ he said.

’However, as with all those who have been involved in setting up and running our on-island testing, we value their contribution to the delivery of service in the Isle of Man.’

Mr Quayle said there were 56 employees in the pathology department, with 11 in microbiology.

’I would like to thank them all for their help enabling us to be in the fortunate position the island is in.’

Ms Edge said that, while she agreed with the decision not to name the author of the letter Mr Ashford had read out, there had been a public outcry over statements that had been made. She asked who was leading the testing regime.

Mr Quayle said: ’Our microbiology team has always been led by Mr (Rizwan) Khan, a consultant, highly eminent, who has given advice to the Council of Ministers on a number of occasions and he has a team, 11 of those are in microbiology. We also have a consultant and a big team in charge of pathology.

’They lead, they advise different medical groups and that is fed-up to the Council of Ministers. We are very grateful for the hard work of Dr Glover and all other people who give advisory work to government that lead on the testing regime.’

Dr Glover had criticised the government’s decision to suspend seven-day testing for people returning to the island, arguing it meant losing valuable data about rates of Covid-19 importation.

In the run-up to her departure, Dr Glover was also been involved in a row over claims she was not a member of health department staff. Mr Ashford had her as ’contract bank staff not an employee’.

In the Keys on Tuesday, Mr Ashford said: ’Dr Glover is a highly intelligent, very knowledgeable individual who is exceptionally good at the job that she does and she has been instrumental in setting up the testing regime on-island and also, I put on record, I thought she gave an excellent presentation to members last week in relation to testing and she deserves praise for that.

’Across the whole of pathology and microbiology, as a small jurisdiction, we are very lucky to have the highly skilled individuals that we do and both Dr Glover and the entire team across pathology and microbiology deserve our praise for giving us a second-to-none testing facility that runs 24/7.’

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