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COVID WATER WOE - Woman in Portland Cottage with 2 kids appeals for help amid supply shortage

Published:Friday | April 3, 2020 | 12:36 AMDanae Hyman/Staff Reporter
Abraham Gullivan awaits a taxi on Thursday while sitting in front of the sign welcoming commuters to Portland Cottage, a Clarendon community which is of major concern for health officials tracking COVID-19 in Jamaica.
Abraham Gullivan awaits a taxi on Thursday while sitting in front of the sign welcoming commuters to Portland Cottage, a Clarendon community which is of major concern for health officials tracking COVID-19 in Jamaica.

A woman of Portland Cottage, Clarendon, who has tested positive for COVID-19, says limited access to clean water has undermined her attempts to comply with personal-hygiene warnings and may have compromised her family’s health in the first place.

The woman, whose name The Gleaner has not published because the stigma associated with the disease has caused the family to face threats of violence, disclosed that she received results of the positive test on Sunday. She is reportedly asymptomatic.

Staring with dark-red eyes and donning a face mask, the woman, dressed in a nightgown, noticeably stood her distance as she expressed grievances about water supply in her community and lamented her family’s incapacity to observe prescribed hygiene protocols.

“Them come give we two tank a water inna wah day ya when them quarantine we, but the animals them have to get out of it, and we have to wash out of it and cook out of it, so we can’t get much to sanitise,” said the woman, while holding her three-month-old son.

The communities of Longville Park, Hayes, and Portland Cottage were listed as areas of concern by Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton during Wednesday’s digital media briefing. Jamaica has recorded 47 new coronavirus infections. Three COVID-19 patients have died.

The 32-year-old woman shared that she contracted the virus from older family members who have since been taken away by Ministry of Health personnel and placed in isolation.

According to the COVID-19-positive woman, her family had interactions with relatives who reside in Corn Piece Settlement in the parish, where Jamaica’s first COVID-19 death was recorded.

The deceased was a 79-year-old man who had returned from New York. One of the six persons tested positive yesterday also had a travel history from New York.

Several of the 47 positive cases are linked to the community.

FAMILY SENT AWAY

The Portland Cottage woman explained why the authorities did not put her in a State-run quarantine facility.

“Me never get to leave because me have two baby them, and one a three months, so them did just take mi other family members because them elderly, and Ministry of Health did say them would send back someone for me later today (Thursday) to bring me in,” she told The Gleaner yesterday.

She revealed that she has followed nurses’ request to self-quarantine at home since her positive test was confirmed.

The woman’s neighbour, 29-year-old Colonel Cowan, said that he is fearful of also contracting the virus and is lobbying for a communal pipe to be gifted to the community.

His brother, who declined to provide his name, said that he has had to purchase additional supplies of water as COVID-19 swirls as personal cleanliness and distancing have become watchwords of social interaction.

Cowan’s brother said that he believes that complications associated with a stroke he suffered three years ago made him particularly vulnerable to the virus. Elderly patients with underlying health conditions such as hypertension and diabetes are at greater risk of fatal fate.

“The water only a serve only a week now because we have to wash we hand more often, and a $4,000 we have to pay every time, and we’re unemployed, so it difficult,” said the brother.

“This used to all serve more than two weeks, but it can’t right now. We round here woulda like be like normal people and get water inna we house, too,” he said.

When The Gleaner contacted Clarendon South Eastern Member of Parliament Pearnel Charles Jr, who represents Portland Cottage, he said he was not fully apprised of the gravity of water woes that plagued that section of the community.

Charles Jr, who is also the de facto minister of water, vowed to deploy trucks with the commodity, at no cost, until a systematic plan was forged to supply water to their homes.

“In Portland Cottage, we have a water project that is currently ongoing. ... For that particular area, I will visit there tomorrow,” he said.

The newly minted MP said that he was “also developing a tank programme so that when they don’t have water and they have to get it from the trucks, they have something safe to put the water in”.

There is heightened global concern about whether asymptomatic patients might be silent carriers of COVID-19, but there are conflicting opinions among scientists about the precise nature of the new disease’s contagiousness.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor McKenzie said that a number of persons who were considered close contacts with the index case in Corn Piece were quarantined at home and tested.

“The results received now show that some are positive. These persons have been isolated at home and arrangements are being made for isolation in government facilities. Contact tracing continues in the affected communities,” Bisasor McKenzie told The Gleaner last night.

Corn Piece remains under quarantine but a decision on whether restrictions there will be lifted is due shortly.

danae.hyman@gleanerjm.com