Stranded Barbadians back on home soil

Just about 110 Barbadians who were stranded in the United States made
it back home yesterday after being repatriated on a JetBlue charter.

With the flight landing at the Grantley Adams International Airport
just around 3:45 p.m., Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Bostic, was on-hand to observe the protocols in use as the
travellers were processed before being taken to their respective
quarantine facilities.

Speaking to members of the media after taking a tour of the terminal,
Bostic made it clear that it was not a commercial flight and that its
sole purpose was to ensure that Barbadians could come home.

“I want to stress that they are Barbadians and as a result of that,
they have every right to be here. We as a country, as a government,
would never deny our citizens the right to return home and a lot of
them have experienced and endured a very serious situation. I spoke to
a couple, for example, who were stuck in the United States for about
four months. And so they are very happy to be back at home and we are
happy to have received them and to be able to now take care of them in
one form or fashion, so that they can return to some state of normalcy
in the country of their birth,” he said.

With this flight being the second of its kind after several Barbadians
came home on another charter from the United Kingdom last week, Bostic
noted that he came out to observe the process after some challenges
were encountered in that instance.

“People complained about the delay – the length of time it took for
them to be able to get out of here. And we agree. This is a dry run
for us and so we met earlier this week with the authorities here at
Grantley Adams International Airport to be able to see how best we
could facilitate such an operation, which is to get these persons from
here into a quarantine facility. So the decision was taken that one of
the things we would do would be to establish a swabbing station here
at the airport. So samples are being taken here so that we could have
some concurrent activity going on here at the airport.”

On to quarantine
With 13 persons on yesterday's flight cleared to quarantine at home,
Minister Bostic took the opportunity to clear the air, explaining that
those exemptions were assessed on a case-by-case basis based on
medical requests and needs before they were approved. All others
arriving are required to quarantine at either the Paragon facility and
the St. Lucy District Hospital and Elaine Scantlebury Centre; or at
hotels with which Government has arrangements. Persons opting to
quarantine at hotels do so at their own expense.

Noting that there is yet another repatriation flight scheduled for
next week to bring home students of the University of the West Indies
in territories outside of Barbados, Lt. Col. Bostic stated that there
would come a time that a more effective system of screening would be
needed.

“At some point in time Grantley Adams International Airport will be
open to international commercial traffic bringing persons to Barbados.
In terms of quarantine, there will come a time when our quarantine
facilities will not be able to sustain those arrivals, especially when
we have a large number of aircraft. So we are at the moment looking at
some other ways of doing this,” he said.

With the entire world eager to get back on track, Bostic said that
Barbados too needs to resume its productivity and said that his
ministry is being proactive in paving a way forward.

“The time is quickly approaching when all of us will have to learn to
live with this virus being around until there is a vaccine or some
therapeutic treatment for COVID-19. The Ministry of Health and
Wellness, our role at this point in time is to try to think ahead and
to try to come up with those protocols, understanding the risks that
have to be taken and also being able to manage those risks and to be
able then to determine what is the tipping point that we consider that
our facilities or our efforts could become inadequate in terms of
dealing with COVID-19. Those are the things we are looking at,” he
explained.
(MP)