Gravely ill farmworker airlifted from Canada

Maxine Sutherland-Jenkins is in emotional turmoil as her farmworker husband, Samuel Jenkins, lies in a hospital bed battling Stage Four cancer of the liver and spleen at The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).

Jenkins, a family breadwinner who hails from Friendship district in Clarendon, was transported back to Jamaica by air ambulance last Friday.

The 53-year-old has been working in Canada on the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Programme since 2003, financing his wife, Maxine, and the welfare of three children, who are now adults.

Jenkins’ travel and medical costs are to be covered by health insurance, made possible with the assistance of liaison officials, according to a Ministry of Labour and Social Security representative who spoke with The Gleaner.

Amid public debate on work conditions on Canadian farms, the insurance coverage for Jenkins’ airlift offers rare insight into the welfare of seasonal Jamaican agricultural workers.

The CDN$5.45 deduction from Jenkins’ daily wage funds his annual National Insurance Scheme repayment as well as his health insurance, life insurance, cost of repatriation, and hospital costs incurred in Canada.

“We don’t pay the health insurance, but the workers pay the health insurance (through salary deductions), and this is one of the things that it covers, recognising that the worker being there wouldn’t necessarily know how to access and navigate all of these things, so that’s the role of our liaison service,” the labour ministry representative said.

There has been increased scrutiny of the farm work programme after unidentified Jamaicans hired in Canada outlined grouses of long hours, intimidation, and poor living conditions.

But Labour Minister Karl Samuda, who toured nine farms recently, dismissed the allegations, describing the relationship between the farmers and Jamaicans as “excellent, strong, and pleasant”.

Maxine, who has been by her husband’s side ever since he arrived, noted that Jenkins had lost a significant amount of weight and that his appearance had changed considerably.

She also observed that his feet were swollen, preventing him from standing or walking, and that he has a distended stomach, which is a symptom of ascites, a condition in which fluid builds up in the abdomen.

“Him can’t help himself, you know. Somebody have to help him,” she said in a Gleaner interview.

Maxine, too, has lost weight as a result of the anxiety of seeing her husband so ill.

“It’s very hard,” she said.

When Jenkins embarked on the programme as he does annually, something felt off.

Jenkins is weak and unable to speak much, but Maxine said that after landing in Canada in July, he suddenly fell ill two weeks later.

She said that he initially reported experiencing a fever and that later, after seeing a doctor in Canada, he was diagnosed with cancer.

His first son, Ricardo, she said, has not been taking his father’s illness well.

“When him see the situation of him, him can’t even hold the phone and talk. Him just tremble, just like meself,” she added.

Things are not looking hopeful and may take a turn for the worse, Ricardo’s older sister, Aneta Jenkins-Spencer, told The Gleaner.

Jenkins-Spencer said the farm worker was the first of 12 siblings to have been diagnosed with cancer.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com