Rachel Patrick was un­aware she had con­tract­ed the Zi­ka virus while preg­nant with her third child two years ago. Though ter­ri­fied when she found out, the Gas­par­il­lo moth­er of two oth­er young chil­dren was forced to buck­le down quick­ly to give her new­born the love and care she de­serves.

Patrick, 30, said from day one it was a strug­gle to pro­vide the care that Jah­mia re­al­ly needs, in ad­di­tion to car­ing for her oth­er chil­dren ages 12 and four.

Jah­mia needs to use a neb­u­lis­er to as­sist with her breath­ing as she has a com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tem, which makes her sus­cep­ti­ble to con­tract­ing virus­es and dis­eases. Jah­mia al­so re­quires vi­t­a­mins dai­ly as her bones and teeth are not strong enough, and she can on­ly eat pureed food which Patrick pre­pares dai­ly by hand since she can­not af­ford a blender.

Patrick, who has been fight­ing the odds ever since to re­main strong, has now found her­self in a worse sit­u­a­tion with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

When COVID-19 hit T&T in mid-March, the long-time day­care op­er­a­tor and sin­gle moth­er was forced to close her doors as the lock­down went in­to ef­fect.

The biggest chal­lenge was to keep a roof over her chil­dren's head, put food on the ta­ble and al­so en­sure Jah­mia, who was af­fect­ed by the Zi­ka virus in utero, con­tin­ued to re­ceive the med­ical care and at­ten­tion she needs.

Like oth­er Zi­ka-af­fect­ed fam­i­lies, Patrick has felt aban­doned by the au­thor­i­ties.

De­scrib­ing how she and oth­er fam­i­lies whose chil­dren were al­so af­fect­ed by Zi­ka are con­tin­u­ing to strug­gle even more now, Patrick said it’s al­most as if they have been for­got­ten by the au­thor­i­ties.

She said, “In the be­gin­ning, it wasn’t easy and even more so now dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.”

In an in­ter­view on Thurs­day, she said, “It has been a strain as there is no in­come com­ing in. I ap­plied for the so­cial re­lief grant in the first week it was ad­ver­tised but I still haven’t got­ten any­thing yet. The on­ly help I have re­ceived to date has been from close friends and the Zi­ka Foun­da­tion.”

Patrick said the $1,500 pub­lic as­sis­tance grant she re­ceives was on­ly enough to cov­er the cost of milk, pam­pers and wipes for Jah­mia. Patrick said Jah­mia’s med­ica­tions and food are nor­mal­ly ab­sorbed in­to her house­hold bud­get but with no mon­ey com­ing in, she has to re­ly on the good­will of oth­ers to get through.

Jah­mia has al­so missed sev­er­al clin­ic ap­point­ments be­tween March due to the lock­down, Patrick said. “I was afraid to go out with her be­cause she has a breath­ing prob­lem and she’s al­ready a high-risk pa­tient and would be more sus­cep­ti­ble to con­tract­ing any­thing out there.” Patrick said the cost of trans­porta­tion was al­so a wor­ry­ing fac­tor. “To go alone is al­ready around $100 and then I have to con­sid­er the re­turn­ing fare.”

Ap­peal­ing for some con­sid­er­a­tion for fam­i­lies like her­self who have Zi­ka-af­fect­ed chil­dren, Patrick said, “They could have at least put some­thing in place for us to help with gro­ceries and med­ica­tions, noth­ing was done and it is re­al­ly re­al­ly hard for us now.”

In­di­cat­ing Jah­mia need­ed ther­a­py week­ly, Patrick said she has been re­ceiv­ing 15-minute ses­sions once every three months through the Min­istry of Health. She praised the Zi­ka Foun­da­tion of T&T for sav­ing Jah­mia and oth­ers as they pro­vide a free hour-long week­ly ther­a­py ses­sion for these chil­dren. Patrick said dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic they al­so stepped up to as­sist in oth­er ar­eas.

“With­out them, I would have been in a re­al­ly bad place and state of mind, it wouldn’t have been good,” she said. “They have been a god­send to all of us. They have saved many of us and they are a bless­ing to my daugh­ter and I.”

Look­ing ahead for the next three months, Patrick said she was un­cer­tain how the fam­i­ly will fare as they can­not con­tin­ue to de­pend on the help from loved ones.

How­ev­er, she is op­ti­mistic that with God’s grace and hope­ful­ly, help from the rel­e­vant min­istries, they will get through it.

“There are fam­i­lies who have it worse than me and they too would need help. To the min­is­ters, please send peo­ple out to see what we need, we are here and we need help too. Every­body needs help but no­body is check­ing with the Zi­ka fam­i­lies to see what kind of sup­port and spe­cial help they need.”

Patrick said Zi­ka fam­i­lies need help to se­cure body braces for their spines, spe­cial shoes for their feet, equip­ment to help de­vel­op their mo­tor skills, food cards for par­ents un­able to work and trained care­tak­ers to as­sist those who are em­ployed.

Patrick al­so ap­pealed for help with gro­ceries, med­ica­tions and clothes.

Zi­ka Foun­da­tion Ap­peals For Help To Con­tin­ue Their Work

The head of the Zi­ka Foun­da­tion of T&T, Dr Karen So­han said while they are de­ter­mined to con­tin­ue help­ing af­fect­ed fam­i­lies, they need the sup­port of Good Samar­i­tans to in­crease their ef­forts.

She said, “The Zi­ka-af­fect­ed chil­dren are now three years old and as you can imag­ine, this has been a very try­ing time for them. "Dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, many of us who were at home full time was able to ap­pre­ci­ate the de­mands in tak­ing care and nur­tur­ing our healthy chil­dren. Just for a mo­ment, try and imag­ine the chal­lenges in tak­ing care of a three year old who is un­able to walk, talk and, in some cas­es, see or hear.”

She said while it was heart-warm­ing to see the re­spons­es from re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions and the pri­vate sec­tor in sup­port­ing the State's ef­forts dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, “This was not the case for the Zi­ka-af­fect­ed fam­i­lies who at times have felt aban­doned and alone.”

So­han said, “There were more fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by the Zi­ka virus than fam­i­lies who lost loved ones in Trinidad and To­ba­go to COVID-19. While it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­pare the two, I can­not help but note the dis­par­i­ty in the re­spons­es to each of these na­tion­al health emer­gen­cies.

“For Zi­ka-af­fect­ed fam­i­lies, their strug­gle be­gan be­fore the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and was on­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed by the ex­treme con­di­tions.

“Just as we wish to pro­vide the best for our healthy chil­dren, it is the same for these fam­i­lies ex­cept that their fo­cus is not the best sec­ondary schools or uni­ver­si­ty or a birth­day par­ty with friends. In most cas­es, it is ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties such as a sim­ple pureed meal, for­mu­la, pam­pers or an­ti-seizure med­ica­tions.”

So­han was un­able to say how many Zi­ka-af­fect­ed chil­dren there are in T&T.

Peo­ple will­ing to help can con­tact the Zi­ka Foun­da­tion at zikafoun­da­tiontt.com