#BTSpeakingOut – Get it straight, I am no ‘anti-vaxxer’

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Grenville Phillips II

I have been asked why I am offering medical advice in my last article. Please note that I am not offering medical advice. You should get your medical advice from medical doctors. So, what am I doing?

As a structural engineer, I am responsible for the quality of all structural materials used in every construction project I supervise.

I do not accept a contractor’s confident assertions that the materials he brought to a construction site are up to standard – I investigate his claims by rigorous checking and testing.

If quarried stone is used, then I check which quarry it came from. Then I get samples from that quarry and have them independently tested, to confirm that they meet the strength and durability properties that I specified in the construction contract.

I also examine the laboratory that tests the stones, and request a recent calibration certificate for the testing equipment. I then verify that the calibration certificate is authentic with the entity that issued it.

If concrete blocks arrive on the site, I select a few randomly for independent testing.

If steel reinforcement arrives at the site, and there is no certificate from the manufacturer, then I get some samples cut and sent to a lab for independent testing. That is only the beginning of the quality control and assurance checks I do for my clients.

Does doing these things make me anti-construction? Of course not. So, why do I do them? Because when the contractor submits an invoice for payment, and I approve it, I then become liable for what the contractor has built.

Therefore, I protect myself by protecting my clients.

I do not normally concern myself with medicines that the Government imports, because I do not take them – I have not been sick in over a decade.

However, if the Government is considering mandating that I and all Barbadians must take an injection, then I have a direct interest in its quality.

Should I not give the injection, at least the same level of rigorous scrutiny that I would give to construction materials going into my client’s properties?

So, no. I am not an ‘anti-vaxxer’ – I am a Structural Engineer.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com