Support facilities, urges Dr. Forde

Manager of the Isolation Facilities, Dr. Corey Forde, has said that the COVID-19 quarantine facilities have a family feel to them and asked the people of Barbados to lend their support.

The sometimes scathing criticism of each facility has been seen on social media, but Dr. Forde has asked the people of Barbados to support the facilities, explaining that they were not his, but they belonged to Barbadians.

“As Barbadians, we need to be very proud of what we have. We have a very good, world-class facility. It is not perfect, but I do not think anywhere in the globe has a perfect facility, but I think we have a great facility and we have marshalled the troops within the facilities to accomplish what we have accomplished within the country,” said Dr. Forde.

The manager highlighted that each facility was not the Ritz-Carlton or Sandy Lane, but each staff member had pulled together, some from their own pockets, to raise and maintain the standard within each facility. He also stated that former patients had reached out to see how they could help after being discharged.

“I think the average Barbadian who has come into the facility, has appreciated what they have seen. If they saw something that was a necessity or need, they have provided that. That speaks well to the sort of family nature that there is at the facility,” he said.

“For us at the Harrison Point Facility, we continue to improve. As I said in previous calls, nothing is ever going to be perfect but I think the one thing that one needs to do, is that if there is criticism, as opposed to running away and as opposed to running away and burying your head in the sand, we must see if they are valid or not in order to make the relevant changes,” said the head.

Dr. Forde announced that within the primary isolation area, six males and eight females were under observation, with one being categorised as being severely ill. That patient was a Barbadian national who had returned from the United States.

“We still have 14 patients in the facility. We did have some admissions and some discharges. To be specific, we currently have six males and eight females within the facility area. We have nine persons categorised as currently on oxygen, so that means they need some sort of support in terms of getting oxygen into the lungs,” he explained.

Dr. Forde explained that the nine included seven Barbadians and two British nationals.

“One of these patients is classified for us as severe; this is one of the patients that I mentioned to you in the previous news briefing who had improved, but there was a little bit of decline in his improvement. We believe that there may be improvement back to a moderate state going into tomorrow (Tuesday),” he said.

Reassuring the public that the majority of the patients within the facilities are well, Dr. Forde said that besides those at the primary facility, others were exhibiting little to mild signs of the illness. He then beseeched Barbadians to continue to support the facilities, saying that it was always easy to criticise and that tearing down the facility always brought challenges, but there needed to be a pride in the facilities. (AS)