Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw has cautioned the country’s largest teachers’ trade union against attempting to use a recent COVID-19 case at the Ann Hill School, to create panic in the wider society.
In an interview on Monday, Minister Bradshaw maintained that although parents received no official word of the magnitude of Friday’s “emergency”, authorities’ actions were consistent with the advice of public health officials.
Meanwhile, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Kenneth George, whose department has also come under scrutiny from the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), admitted to some “breakdown in communication” along the way. He is, however, adamant that the protocols implemented to minimize the likelihood of COVID-19 in schools continue to meet expectations, and so far, no further spread of the deadly virus has been recorded from any of the most recent cases at learning institutions.
Over the weekend, BUT President, Pedro Shepherd slammed the two Government ministries involved after learning that teachers and parents of students at the Ann Hill School received no official announcement of the lone COVID-19 case. Shepherd argued that the unexplained “emergency” could have resulted in further virus spread, as students and parents would have left school to conduct normal business in supermarkets, public transportation and other places of business.
He also underscored the need for the implementation of new protocols to determine the future management of similar issues.
Minister Bradshaw however dismissed the suggestion, contending that there were far too many “critical” and “important” items on her ministry’s agenda to be “distracted” by the criticism.
Whilst at the Hilda Skeene Primary School on Monday, the education minister explained that the information provided to teachers and parents was consistent with the information which they received from the Ministry of Health.
“When the Ministry of Health discovers a case, the Ministry of Health does the assessment and the contact tracing and informs the Ministry of Education how to advise principals, teachers and staff. There is no other protocol that I can follow. If they say there is a problem, we respond. If they say just hold on a second, we have to continue the investigation, we are not quite sure, obviously we will have to wait until we hear from them. But I can’t close schools when there is no guidance from the Ministry of Health as to how we proceed,” Bradshaw told Barbados TODAY.
“It has to be guided by the health ministry. It is not like it’s a fire or a building falling down… but in relation to a pandemic where obviously there are different variables, children may not have interacted with the students. As you well are aware, we have had instances where only a classroom was impacted and that assessment must be done in conjunction with the principals first before any decisions can be taken.
“There’s no point, as is happening, creating an alarm when there may not be any. Ministries are not in the habit of doing that. That is for other people to do. We are not in the business of creating alarm and panic in the country. We have been managing a crisis from day one, so those who are not capable of managing a crisis need to take it elsewhere, but I don’t have time for that,” Bradshaw added.
On Monday afternoon, the CMO explained that once a COVID-19 case is identified in a school, the Ministry of Education is informed and is expected to inform senior officials at the school, who inform parents and/or students.
“There was obviously some form of breakdown in communication, but normally, the persons who speak with the school initially are the Ministry of Education…but as I said, the Ministry of Health doesn’t engage the students. We would have spoken to the principal and other senior officials in the Ministry of Education. They should have reached out to the school, given the school the information and then we come in and do our contact tracing,” Dr George told Barbados TODAY.
“We are meeting with the school this [Monday] afternoon to clear up some outstanding matters. I will be at that meeting,” the CMO added.
He added that neither of the two new cases highlighted on the country’s latest COVID-19 dashboard are connected to the Ann Hill School or the Princess Margaret Secondary School, which recorded one case.
“We had two extra cases yesterday, those were related to the manufacturing establishments, but the total number in the family clusters that I spoke about are eight – three in one family and five in the next. If schools continue to do the basic protocols, the likelihood of the transmission of coronavirus remains low,” George declared. (kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)
