Sascha Wil­son

For­mer Med­ical Chief of Staff at the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal, Dr Karen So­han-Seenath, has put for­ward a pro­pos­al for the ac­cel­er­at­ed repa­tri­a­tion of strand­ed na­tion­als to the Gov­ern­ment.

She post­ed the pro­pos­al on her Face­book page on In­de­pen­dence Day in re­sponse to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment on Sat­ur­day that they are go­ing to max­imise ex­emp­tions be­ing grant­ed. How­ev­er, Row­ley not­ed too that trans­porta­tion would be a dif­fer­ent is­sue be­cause the bor­ders are closed.

So­han-Seenath’s post was lat­er shared to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cit­i­zens Stuck Abroad: Help­ing Hands page which was set up by Trinida­di­ans stuck abroad as a sup­port group. So­han-Seenath is al­so a mem­ber of this group, hav­ing been stuck in Flori­da since March.

Over the past six months, na­tion­als stuck in for­eign coun­tries have been plead­ing to come home. Many of them have shared hor­ror sto­ries on so­cial me­dia of run­ning out of food, mon­ey, med­i­cine and fac­ing home­less­ness.

In an in­ter­view via What­sapp with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, So­han-Seenath said the repa­tri­a­tion pro­pos­al was draft­ed based on con­sul­ta­tion with health care pro­fes­sion­als via so­cial me­dia and oth­er forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. She said it was al­so done in ac­cor­dance with cur­rent lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al COVID-19 health care pol­i­cy.

In her pro­pos­al, So­han-Seenath sug­gest­ed that Gov­ern­ment brings home at least 300 peo­ple with a valid neg­a­tive PCR test re­sults every sev­en days. She said dis­placed na­tion­als would be re­quired to li­aise with pub­lic health of­fi­cials to arrange a place for their 14-day quar­an­tine, at home or in state quar­an­tine. She al­so sug­gest­ed that a COVID-19 PCR test is done with­in 72 hours be­fore an­tic­i­pat­ed air-trav­el. How­ev­er, if a per­son is un­able to pay for the test or does not have ac­cess to one, the Min­istry of Health will ad­vise them on al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments. She said na­tion­als should pay their air­fare but at a fair rate and that they sign the Pub­lic Health Quar­an­tine or­der on ar­rival at the air­port.

She said the Gov­ern­ment should as­sist in the arrange­ment of flights.

“Con­sid­er New York, Mi­a­mi/Ft. Laud­erdale, UK and Cana­da. Where pos­si­ble, the na­tion­al car­ri­er will be uti­lized to as­sist na­tion­als with cost. Ap­proval of emer­gency cas­es on a need ba­sis e.g. med­ical con­di­tions, death of loved ones, preg­nan­cy and child-birth.”

In the case of home quar­an­tine, So­han-Seenath said symp­toms should be mon­i­tored by the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer Health (CMOH) of­fices, as is cur­rent­ly be­ing done for the 643 COVID-pos­i­tive pa­tients in home quar­an­tine. In ad­di­tion, she said spot checks are to be done by pub­lic health of­fi­cials and/or the TTPS.

While re­lieved and ex­cit­ed yes­ter­day that they may re­turn home soon, na­tion­als abroad were still con­cerned they would not be able to pay the air­fare.

A 67-year-old woman in Bal­ti­more since March com­plained via the Help­ing Hand Face­book group, “This is high­way rob­bery, since many of us have re­turn tick­ets, why should we have to pay mon­ey to char­ter a plane. The Gov­ern­ment needs to let air­lines come in and have peo­ple quar­an­tined when they ar­rive.” Stuck in Seat­tle since March, an­oth­er woman said she has run out of heart med­ica­tion. In re­sponse to the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment, she post­ed, “it’s on­ly God & prayers that I’m still alive, this should have, though I’m hap­py to hear this news, the de­pres­sion & men­tal frus­tra­tion was re­al.”

So­han-Seenath said the pro­pos­al was hand-de­liv­ered to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Min­istry of Health.