Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to trans­fer 29 re­cov­er­ing COVID-19 pa­tients from the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal to a build­ing in the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande, has raised con­cerns among the res­i­dents who live in close prox­im­i­ty to the build­ing. The build­ing, at Bridge Street, was pre­vi­ous­ly used as a home for the el­der­ly.

In fact, the res­i­dents staged a fiery protest on the road­way on Fri­day night to show their dis­ap­proval with the plan. Po­lice and sol­diers who re­spond­ed to the trou­ble call even­tu­al­ly put out the fire along the road­way which had pre­vent­ed ve­hi­cles from en­ter­ing the small com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dents told Guardian Me­dia that around 5.30 pm on Fri­day, two peo­ple from the East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty ar­rived and spoke to three in­di­vid­u­als in the area about the plan. This trig­gered the protest hours lat­er.

When Guardian Me­dia re­turned to the area on Sat­ur­day, res­i­dents who live in the close-knit com­mu­ni­ty said they were con­cerned for their health, in par­tic­u­lar some 30-plus el­der­ly vil­lagers whose ages range from 82 to 89.

"We are fright­ened by the move as world­wide this dead­ly virus is killing the el­der­ly peo­ple whose ages are over 60 years. We are en­joy­ing our ripe ages, hav­ing fun with our great-grand­chil­dren and fam­i­ly mem­bers, why they want us dead now,” a pen­sion­er from the area said.

Un­el­da Fran­cis, 88, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia while stand­ing in the ve­ran­dah of her Bridge Road home, which is next to the build­ing des­ig­nat­ed for hous­ing the COVID-19 pa­tients, said she was not in favour of the move.

She said “I doh want that, not at all, and I'm call­ing up­on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to im­me­di­ate­ly de­sist from this un­healthy idea. I'm ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to al­low us to en­joy the rest of our lives un­til God is ready for us.

"Have a heart, Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Health and have the pa­tients tak­en to an­oth­er place, please!"

Latch­min, 89, who al­so spoke from the in­side her house, said she was very dis­pleased and was hurt­ing.

"I am afraid and bring­ing these peo­ple to the build­ing op­po­site to my house spells dan­ger to vil­lagers and the el­der­ly."

Lean­ing on his stick, Julius, 82, who has been liv­ing in the area for over 60 years, said the Gov­ern­ment has nev­er done any­thing for the peo­ple of Brook­lyn and was now ap­par­ent­ly seek­ing to send them to their grave.

"I can­not un­der­stand this idea and whose it was to come and bring pan­ic and fear to the el­der­ly and mem­bers of this peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty in Brook­lyn, San­gre Grande. Many peo­ple are liv­ing be­yond 80 years and they are us­ing this act to get rid of us. We will protest and do every­thing that is avail­able to stop this cri­sis com­ing in­to Brook­lyn."

Julien asked, "Why Brook­lyn when they have al­ready es­tab­lished a quar­an­tine place at Ba­lan­dra? Why they have to come and dis­turb our lives?"

David Clarke, who lives two hous­es from the build­ing in con­tention, said it spelled a health dan­ger for the com­mu­ni­ty.

"To be­gin with, this build­ing can­not house 29 peo­ple," he said. "It is too small to ac­com­mo­date this num­ber. They speak­ing about so­cial dis­tanc­ing, this can­not hap­pen at this build­ing.

"The build­ing is not fenced (to the back). As any hu­man be­ings, these pa­tients will slip through the back and end up on the East­ern Main Road, San­gre Grande, where they may pur­chase cig­a­rettes and spread the COVID-19 in­fec­tion, which will in­crease the num­ber of cas­es and even death to our el­der­ly cit­i­zens."

Clarke said he had a dis­cus­sion with his two sons, a sol­dier and a po­lice of­fi­cer, who both sup­port­ed his views and con­clud­ed that dis­as­ter await­ed the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty.

He ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment to use the army who had all the nec­es­sary equip­ment to clear a piece of state land away from close-knit com­mu­ni­ties and have the COVID-19 pa­tients housed there to avoid the pan­ic, stress and frus­tra­tion for the res­i­dents.

A res­i­dent, who on­ly gave his name as Phillip, said this move could nev­er be fair to them. "San­gre Grande has not record­ed one case of the COVID-19 virus and the Min­istry of Health must al­low good sense to pre­vail and al­low this com­mu­ni­ty to re­main free of the COVID-19 virus," he said.

"Why choose Brook­lyn?" he asked.

Mil­lan Phillip, a res­i­dent, said their MP, Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith, had not vis­it­ed the peo­ple of Brook­lyn on this ur­gent health is­sue.

He said, how­ev­er, Anil Juter­am, chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion had vis­it­ed and was giv­ing them his sup­port.

Juter­am said his con­cern was pro­tect­ing the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of the re­gion.