Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Col. the Honourable Jeffrey Bostic and the rest of the touring team looking at the operations of one of the Thermal Imaging Scanners which was donated to the QEH yesterday.
Sagicor Life Inc. has donated three Thermal Imaging Scanners to help
the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) and the Grantley Adams
International Airport (GAIA) fight against COVID-19.
Executive Vice President and General Manager (Designate) of Sagicor
(Barbados), Paul Inniss officially handed over the technology
yesterday – one to the QEH and two to GAIA – valued at approximately
BD$300,000 to Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Col. the Honourable
Jeffrey Bostic.
“These full-body scanners will assist with identifying potential
carriers of the virus as they enter our nation’s primary medical
facility and, with the planned re-opening of this island’s borders,
the threat of COVID-19 is ever present and so we are certain that they
will be an asset to our medical teams at the airport as well,” Inniss
pointed out.
“At Sagicor, we believe in doing all that we can to better the lives
of those in the communities in which we operate. During these
unprecedented times, the health and safety of our population must be a
priority and we will continue to provide support wherever we can, to
ensure this is maintained.”
Minister Bostic thanked Sagicor Life for the donation which he
described as ‘timely’, given that the country seeks to fully reopen.
“This is timely because even back then when we recognised the
importance of having the thermal scanners – that importance has
increased significantly because we are now at the stage of reopening
our country to receive international flights – and obviously visitors
again to our shores,” he indicated.
“This gift to the QEH will go a long way towards the reopening of the
hospital to visitors, and for us to be able to control and contain any
eventuality that results from the reopening… this is now part and
parcel of our desire to ensure that the hospital has all of the safety
nets that it can have in order to protect the staff and the patients
of the institution.”
The Health Minister also took the opportunity to extend appreciation
to all individuals and companies who assisted government to step up
the fight against coronavirus.
“From the time that COVID entered our shores, the Government of
Barbados made it very clear that the only way that we could win with
this particular battle was for there to be collaboration and
cooperation across the length and breadth of this country.
“So that from day one and subsequent days, we have been witnessing a
level of cooperation; a level of support and collaboration in Barbados
that I have certainly not seen before in my lifetime,” Bostic said.
(TL)