PdP: Test frontline workers, prison for COVID-19

The People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) today urged Government to test all frontline workers for COVID-19 regularly and provide testing kits at the lone prison, HMP Dodds.

The PdP’s health and wellness spokesman Paul Gibson, and Maria Phillips, the spokesman on law and governance, made the call during a virtual news conference. Gibson said it was important frontline workers were tested at least once every two weeks.

He said these should include nurses, doctors, orderlies, sanitation workers, prison officers, pathologists, paramedics, the military, auxillary staff at the Enmore and Paragon isolation and quarantine facilities, and pharmacists.

He pointed to the high number of cases in the UK and Italy where nurses and doctors especially had tested positive for COVID-19.

Gibson maintained that the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) was simply not enough.

He suggested that infected nurses could possibly be unknowingly spreading the disease to family members, though he provided no evidence for his claim.

He said: “Barbados has an important role to play in this global pandemic by ensuring the safety and the protection of these persons who are working on the frontlines and who may be exposed or who may be at risk.

“Given the infectivity and the nature of this virus there is a list of persons that we at the PdP consider to be frontline personnel and who are serving us diligently daily and should be wearing the necessary PPEs when conducting their daily tasks. We would like to urge the Government that these persons are considered high risk and should therefore be tested every two weeks or more.

“Persons within the area of COVID-19 care, in terms of managing patients directly, should at least have routine testing because hypothetically, you may have somebody who goes home and comes back and if that person is by chance asymptomatic…  It was just mentioned today on CNN that two days before you become symptomatic you are most infectious.”

President of the Barbados Nurses’ Association, Joannah Waterman, last week urged mandatory testing for nurses at all healthcare facilities.

Government has insisted that nurses and doctors will not be tested for the virus unless they become symptomatic.

But Gibson suggested Barbados did not have to follow the guidelines set out by the World Health Organization.

He said several countries around the world were instituting different practices in their battle against COVID-19.

The party spokesman also called on Government to reveal how many test kits were coming to Barbados, how many were in the country, which communities had been affected most by COVID-19 and if any cases had been reported within the prison population.

Phillips said there was a need for additional testing kits at the St Philip prison.

She cited COVID-10 outbreaks at prisons in the United States for her contention.

Phillips said: “We are hearing everyday of persons being remanded… but while it was indicated by the Superintendent of Prisons that prisoners were being screened, that does not necessarily mean they are being tested.

“Obviously the situation that that creates because you have persons who are closely knitted together in a cell, the conditions are conducive to a breakout. So in terms of the concerns that both prison officers and those persons who are recently being remanded be subject to be tested is obviously important.

“I believe that in this instance that the policies that are being implemented have to be preemptive because you would not want a situation where there is an outbreak because it will create serious issues related to law and order and how we will manage that entire system and the effects of that happening within our prison system.”
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb