Help coming for vulnerable – Forde

No person or family will be left behind to fend for themselves as the country battles the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

That assurance has come from the Minister of People Empowerment and Elderly Affairs Cynthia Forde, who today revealed that while 2000 families had been identified as being vulnerable, they were others struggling who had not yet been accounted for.

“Our social workers are still out in the field doing their investigations to be able to report back in. They ease over in St Lucy and over in St Philip or over in St Michael, wherever the people are we are going to reach them to make sure that they are going to be pulled into the loop to be able to receive [help],” Forde said while speaking during the Standing Finance Committee meeting in Parliament this morning.

“There are more than 500 families with persons who are differently-abled and we are making sure that they too are being looked after. We are making sure that over 2000 elderly who are out there relying on the National Assistance Board to look after their needs, and then there are many others who have never been identified, we are trying to be able to look after their needs and make sure that at least one basic meal is there per day.”

Forde used the opportunity to plead with able-bodied Barbadians to help those disadvantaged and elderly persons in their communities whenever they could.

She said in many instances, especially in the case of the elderly, they suffer from serious health issues.

“I’m asking for neighbours to peep in and offer something to these seniors who are most likely suffering from non-communicable diseases, some are amputees, some have diabetes and kidney challenges, some have got cancer and some have had strokes.

“It is no easy matter when we can sit in our homes and we can eat and we can drink three times a day and those persons out there who have helped to build Barbados with their blood, sweat and tears in the sugar fields and the shops and in the plantation houses, have nobody or anything they can eat in these times,” Forde argued.