Camille McEach­nie

& Loyse Vin­cent

Amidst con­cerns that the ab­sence of two se­nior peo­ple may af­fect To­ba­go’s han­dling of COVID-19-re­lat­ed cas­es, To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) chair­man In­grid Melville is al­lay­ing is­landers’ fears.

Con­cerns were raised about the TRHA’s abil­i­ty to han­dle any im­pend­ing COVID-19 threat af­ter Health Sec­re­tary Agatha Car­ring­ton re­signed on Feb­ru­ary 28 and CEO Shel­don Cyrus was fired on March 2.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the au­thor­i­ty’s ca­pac­i­ty to han­dle any pos­si­ble health sit­u­a­tion due to COVID-19, Melville said, “To­bag­o­ni­ans need not wor­ry.”

She stressed that the pub­lic health de­part­ment is pri­mar­i­ly re­spon­si­ble for spear­head­ing ef­forts to man­age the sit­u­a­tion in ther event of a COVID-19 emer­gency, adding the TRHA is mak­ing sure the is­land’s health fa­cil­i­ties are equipped and ready if and when need­ed and would be able to “han­dle any case man­age­ment that may re­sult from any pa­tient with coro­n­avirus.”

“We have al­ready demon­strat­ed this,” Melville added.

How­ev­er, de­spite Melville’s re­as­sur­ance on the is­sue, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil is call­ing for the board’s im­me­di­ate re­moval, say­ing the Di­vi­sion of Health is with­out lead­er­ship while the world is grap­pling with COVID-19.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the coun­cil’s Main Street, Scar­bor­ough of­fice yes­ter­day, As­sem­bly­man Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the is­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a health cri­sis. He called on the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil to “get its act to­geth­er” and de­cide what should be done with the TRHA board mem­bers.

“I’m go­ing to call for the en­tire board to be fired or re­sign be­cause we can­not have a sit­u­a­tion where we are chang­ing CEOs more of­ten than some peo­ple change un­der­wear,” the area rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Par­latu­vi­er/L’ Anse Four­mi/Spey­side said.

He said the board has shown it can­not over­see To­bag­o­ni­ans’ health is­sues.

“If the board has been pick­ing the wrong CEO by hir­ing some­one and turn­ing around and fir­ing them, it sim­ply means that some­thing’s wrong with the board,” Far­ley said.

Mean­while, vil­lagers in Louis D’or said they were com­fort­able with the Health De­part­ment’s cur­rent han­dling of a vil­lager who re­turned from Chi­na less than 14 days ago. The woman was quar­an­tined at home, then tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for a slight fever but re­turned home un­der po­lice guard when her test re­sults for COVID-19 re­turned naga­tive.

“In any case, we know they (au­thor­i­ties) will do their best. It’s just pro­pa­gan­da that peo­ple might be spread­ing about what is hap­pen­ing at the hos­pi­tal. It’s all about ed­u­cat­ing your­self about the virus,” vil­lager Kedrick Stew­art told Guardian Me­dia.

The girl’s broth­er said most vil­lagers are al­so not con­cerned about get­ting the coro­n­avirus be­cause his sis­ter is in the vil­lage.

“On­ly peo­ple who not ed­u­cat­ed about it mak­ing noise about the sit­u­a­tion,” he said.