Sol­diers were yes­ter­day sent in to as­sist po­lice in keep­ing the peace as prepa­ra­tion on the for­mer Ag­ing at Home build­ing con­tin­ued apace at Bridge Road, Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande.

Res­i­dents in the area are against the Min­istry of Health’s plan to use the build­ing as a step-down fa­cil­i­ty for re­cov­er­ing COVIDS-19 pa­tients and had staged protest ac­tion on Fri­day night in­to Sat­ur­day to high­light their con­cerns. They be­lieve the COVID pa­tients will present a health risk to their com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly to the many el­der­ly cit­i­zens who re­side there.

Due to the fiery protest ac­tion which took place, how­ev­er, the min­istry sent in the sol­diers as re­in­force­ment to East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice of­fi­cers un­der ASP Gabriel Joseph. As it turned out, the joint team had lit­tle work to do as res­i­dents stayed in­doors for most of yes­ter­day. This was due to a fake news post on so­cial me­dia which claimed the re­cov­er­ing COVID pa­tients, who have been moved from the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal to Cau­ra while the San­gre Grande fa­cil­i­ty is be­ing prepped, had ar­rived at the Bridge Road fa­cil­i­ty around 2 am yes­ter­day.

While many of the res­i­dents re­fused to come out of their hous­es yes­ter­day, even to speak to the me­dia, some have vowed to con­tin­ue protest ac­tion to en­sure the fa­cil­i­ty is not opened.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh as­sured on Sat­ur­day that the res­i­dents would not be in harm’s way, as the pa­tients will be kept iso­lat­ed. How­ev­er, vil­lagers are ar­gu­ing that the fa­cil­i­ty is too close to homes, not­ing there is no fence at the back of the build­ing and pa­tients will be able to leave the fa­cil­i­ty quite eas­i­ly and re­turn.

Yes­ter­day, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein told Guardian Me­dia she has been li­ais­ing with the res­i­dents and stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with them, not­ing she un­der­stands their con­cerns. She said she al­so had a con­ver­sa­tion with East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty CEO Ronald Tsoi-a- Fatt en­quir­ing why the Ba­lan­dra fa­cil­i­ty was not be­ing con­sid­ered but that con­ver­sa­tion did not go well. She re­it­er­at­ed that the res­i­dents’ con­cerns are le­git­i­mate and no one should fault them for be­ing ag­i­tat­ed.

“One has to un­der­stand the pop­u­la­tion at large, as they are self-quar­an­tined, many have lost their jobs, many are un­sure of what the fu­ture holds for them. And if the Gov­ern­ment is un­able to suf­fi­cient­ly as­sure the pop­u­la­tion of what is hap­pen­ing, I don’t think it is for a lack of com­pas­sion that res­i­dents are cry­ing for help, but rather self-preser­va­tion of fam­i­lies and them­selves,” she said.