Absent PCR results delaying return flight

A Guyanese national has found himself ‘trapped’ in Barbados because he has been unable to get back his PCR test results in a timely fashion.

To date, the 41-year-old has been forced to twice rebook his ticket to return home, as Guyana’s protocols require persons to have a negative PCR test on arrival.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, the frustrated visitor explained that it was his intention to return to his family in December 2020.

However, he said while he was tested on December 27, he never received the results from those tests.

It meant he had no choice but to change the date for his flight.

With his time for staying in Barbados almost at an end, he said he went to the Immigration Department, explained his situation and was granted a month-long extension.

The Guyanese said he took the decision to “wait a little bit” because of the backlog in test results in January.

“I did my second test February 2 but I ain’t get my results yet. My flight is supposed to be for February 8 and I now went back dey and ask them about the test again and dey telling me that they check up on my thing and it in the lab but dey don’t know if I gine get it back before the time for me to leave,” he said.

“Even though I do the test February 2, I should still get it back in time for my flight because that’s almost a week.”

He said he even went as far to get a third test done today hoping that one of the results would be returned by Monday – the date of his flight.

“I ain’t know if I gine get it back but I say I gine do two…I ain’t waan get in no problems with the law, I waan do things the right way. I did trying to go home since before this shutdown the very first time and they shutdown in March and I end up staying, but is time now that I should leave the country. I trying to go home but I ain’t getting to go home. Dey ain’t giving me the tests to go out the people place.”

On Tuesday during a live televised press conference, Prime Minister Mia Mottley revealed that the Best-dos Santos Laboratory had been having issues delivering timely test results.

She said this was due to the absence of critical

“We do and have had some challenges in the last four, five days with respect to test results and it is largely because the reagents for the automatic extraction and the RNA from the samples are not available,” the Prime Minister said at the time.

She said without the required reagents the process would have to be done manually.

However, Mottley said this method was more tedious and took much longer for tests to be examined.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)