What about us? - Stranded ship workers demand answers after learning of TCI patient being flown into the island
Published:Sunday | April 19, 2020 | 12:00 AMLivern Barrett - Senior Staff Reporter
The Jamaican workers stranded overseas on-board the Marella Discovery 2 cruise ship have demanded answers from the Government after learning that the ban on incoming passengers was relaxed for a gravely ill patient from the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) who needed emergency medical treatment here.
The male patient arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston Thursday night, on-board an air ambulance, Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang has confirmed.
He was later transported to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) in St Andrew, where he tested positive for the dreaded coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the hospital admitted in a statement yesterday.
This development comes nearly two weeks since the Marella Discovery 2, with 43 Jamaican workers seeking to disembark, was refused landing in Kingston because of the ban on incoming passengers which was imposed last month as part of the Government’s COVID-19 containment measures.
“How could this be possible given the fact that 43 Jamaican citizens were denied landing a few weeks ago?” one of the ship workers queried of The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.
“Why weren’t the protocols followed to obtain the requisite exemption from the order restricting incoming passenger traffic to Jamaica for 43 Jamaican citizens, but it was for someone from the Turks and Caicos Islands?”
The ship worker, whose name is being withheld, expressed sympathy for the TCI patient, but insisted that “we were treated unfairly”.
“The crew members are not carriers of COVID-19 and would not pose any threat to our families or the wider population. However, this foreigner tested positive, putting our healthcare workers at risk,” he stated.
WHAT IS AN EMERGENCY?
The stranded crew members got support from Matondo Mukulu, former public defender in Jamaica and a barrister in the United Kingdom, where the Marella Discovery 2 is now docked.
Mukulu believes most Jamaicans would not take issue with a relaxation of the ban for the TCI patient, but “I think every Jamaican would also say that it appears that the Government does not know how to define an emergency”.
“Because 43 hard-working Jamaicans wanting to disembark is also an emergency. Not because they were not faced with a life-and-death situation does not mean that it was not an emergency,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
However, Chang defended the decision to relax the ban and allow the TCI patient to get treatment at the UHWI, saying it was a “medical emergency”.
Chang insisted, too, that there were no comparisons between the two cases and that both were handled “professionally”.
“In this case [the TCI patient], we had a medical emergency. A life-and-death situation is completely different from the ship,” Chang said.
“It’s a different case all together, completely different. The two things can’t be treated the same way.”
The Marella Discovery 2 arrived in Kingston on April 2. According to reports, it refuelled and waited hours for docking clearance, but left after a day when no response came from the Government.
LEGAL AND MORAL OBLIGATION
Prime Minister Andrew Holness revealed, during a press conference last week, that he and some members of the Cabinet agreed informally that the ship workers should be allowed to disembark in their homeland. However, he said the ship, through its agent, withdrew the application for docking clearance and left before the process was completed.
Chang explained that the TCI man is a patient of the UHWI, having had surgery at the Mona, St Andrew hospital in March this year. He noted, also, that Jamaica has a longstanding arrangement with the TCI to treat serious medical cases.
According to the UHWI, he was a cancer patient who had a “bleeding gastric cancer treated on March 16 this year. He returned home 10 days later”, the hospital said in a statement yesterday.
“He went back home [after the surgery] and developed significant complications, which required intensive care treatment. There is a legal and moral obligation to bring him back to the university [hospital] and treat him for a procedure that was done in Jamaica recently,” Chang asserted.
The national security minister noted that there was a provision in the Disaster Risk Management Order that gives him the authority, subject to the approval of Cabinet, to approve the easing of the ban on incoming passengers.