The homeless shelter has been reopened after over 40 staff members and clients received negative COVID-19 test results.
Last Monday, the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEH) was forced to close the doors of its Spry Street, City shelter, after being informed that same day that one of its clients tested positive for COVID-19.
Yesterday, during the COVID-19 press conference, Minister of Health and Wellness Jeffrey Bostic said that due to quick action by public health officials, the situation at the shelter had been brought under control, with everyone tested at that location receiving negative PCR and antigen test results.
“We also had a situation at a homeless shelter and this was a cause for concern as you can appreciate, where we had one positive case. We moved into that situation quickly. We appointed one of our public health doctors to be responsible for that response and I can tell you that all staff and all of the persons who were residing at the shelter have not only tested negative on the first PCR test and the antigen rapid test that were done, but they have all tested negative on the second PCR test and I believe should have been relieved from quarantine by now.”
Today, BAEH Founder and President Kemar Saffrey said all of the shelter’s employees were back at work to facilitate regular functioning of the facility.
“It is key that we are able to continue our services because we need to continue our rehabilitation programme so that our clients could go back into mainstream society. We had put things in place for the homeless when we closed our doors. They could not come to the organisation, but there were other groups and other organisations and partners that stepped in. So the homeless were not in any way impacted, other that they could not come because the organisation was under quarantine. But for the most part, all of our clients are good,” he said.
He said the majority of those clients who would have left the shelter before it closed last Monday would have been located and sent to be tested. He gave his assurance that in light of the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, management of the shelter would continue to ensure that all COVID-19 protocols are followed.
“We were always following the protocols. The fact that we are all negative showed that we have been following the steps we had in place. It goes to show that our steps were really good and protected us. For a couple of weeks, we were living with a gentleman that was COVID positive. So it just goes to show that our protocols were very strong and we were able to protect ourselves,” Saffrey said.
He noted that the client who received the positive test result, initially presented with a negative antigen test result before he entered the shelter at the start of the national lockdown on February 3. (AH)
