COVID mission goes on the road

The Ministry of Health and Wellness has hit the ground running with another attempt to tackle the COVID-19 crisis at the community level, through an initiative known as the Mission Critical: Saving Lives Risk Communication and Community Engagement programme.

On Friday, Community Health Liaison Officers from the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit and community health volunteers lined the urban corridor, particularly Wellington Street, St Michael and surrounding areas.

There, they engaged with residents to hear their concerns, attitudes and practices relative to the COVID-19 situation and distributed educational tools and personal protective equipment.

Acting Minister of Health and Chairman of the Cabinet COVID-19 Sub-Committee Dr Jerome Walcott expressed concern about the rising numbers and the other dangerous trends over the last few weeks.

“We have seen over the last week, the average median age for persons contracting COVID has dropped. Conversely, we have seen that the average age of persons dying is around 65 years,” Dr Walcott disclosed.

“We recognise that we have been doing a lot of good work as it relates to the clinical aspects, the care and treatment, but there are still some things that need to be done. We have been communicating through PSAs, but we seem to be missing certain targeted groups in our community and we think that this is a very important initiative.

“I see it as giving information and gathering information at the same time that can be used in creating our messages to target specific demographics,” he added.

Dr Walcott commended the Community Health Liaison Officers for the work they have done which at times caused them to receive verbal abuse from some members of the public. He, however, added, that the nature of the task at hand would differ from the previous role of monitoring behaviour and imposing penalties in collaboration with law enforcement.

“This is where you will be giving information and gathering information that we in the ministry will find extremely useful in creating the appropriate messages for the population for the various areas that you will be targeting – the elderly, the young, those who frequent rum shops and those who are unvaccinated and we expect you from the interactions to impart information to them and advise, but also to gather, to see that they see the entire process and see how we can work together in the end to develop a plan that will take care of COVID in our country,” the Cabinet spokesman declared.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George said the group’s work is critical to the objectives of the Ministry of Health.

“We are happy to have you on board and know that many of you will be working in the Independence celebrations and I want to thank you up front for that because that is also important to our national response to make sure that those celebrations are kept in a fair degree of safety,” said Dr George.

Leading Coordinator of the Programme Arlene Husbands said one of the main objectives of the exercise was to help citizens better understand how to cope with the illness.

“COVID is no respecter of persons and therefore if we have a better understanding and if they know how to live and cope with this. I believe at the end of this we can get more people complying using the protocols, using the hand sanitisers that we will be distributing and the face masks,” said Husbands.

“So we will be dealing with the basics that we want them to understand and we are also taking the opportunity to find out what their needs are,” she added. (KS)