By Caribbean Medical News Staff
According to Senior Barbados Government Information Service personnel, Barbados’ Ebola preparedness efforts have now been elevated to the highest level of government under the National Security Council chaired by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart. This is according to Joy Springer, in a BGIS release in that island.
According to the report, the island’s Health Minister the Hon. John Boyce made the announcement in an address to the nation on the lone state-owned TV station CBC-TV last week.
He indicated that the Ministry and its partners were doing all that was possible to safeguard the citizens and people in Barbados from the dreaded Ebola virus.
He also said that all the necessary protocols and training were in place.
More recently, some Barbadians (as many as four hundred) had signed a petition against the location of the island’s lone Ebola isolation centre which is a stone’s throw away from the St. Ursula’s School, the St Michael Secondary School and St Gabriel’s School. At a recent town hall meeting, one parent angrily asked other parents to join him in bringing an injunction against the Ministry regarding the placement of the centre on the outskirts of the major town centre and the various schools.
“Training aimed at raising awareness of the disease, its transmission and preventive strategies took place in August for health care workers and administrative staff in the ministry of health, as well as other government agencies, the private sector and civil society”, said the BGIS release.
The release indicated that Boyce had “assured the public that the ministry had an ample supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and additional supplies were on order and expected in the island soon. More recently, the Minister and the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners’ (BAMP) President Carlos Chase were at odds as to the island’s preparedness.
He also stressed that great attention was being paid to the ports of entry with protocols for the management of passengers agreed upon by port health staff, immigration and customs officers as part of the enhanced surveillance measures. In the event that there is an arriving passenger requiring observation, quarantine facilities are functional at ports of entry, airport and seaport, and systems for surveillance in place.
The minister revealed that the emergency ambulance service also had an Ebola protocol in place, which included the private sector ambulance services. Training in the use of personal protective equipment, infection control and decontamination of the vehicles is ongoing and has been extended to the private sector, he added.
Boyce emphasised that an isolation centre was a critical aspect of the preparedness plan and the centre located at Enmore, near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, would be ready for use by November 1. The facility, he explained, had been designed in strict compliance with international standards for infection control, waste management and air quality.
He stressed that current information stated that the disease could only be transmitted by close contact with a patient or their bodily fluids and therefore, the centre did not pose a risk to persons in the vicinity.
Boyce stated: “Barbados has a sound public health care system with trained staff in infection control measures necessary to contain any cases of infectious diseases, such as Ebola. We are therefore confident that our health care system will be able to manage and contain the Ebola virus if the need arises.”
