It took an unfortunate incident in which two patients diagnosed with the infectious Tuberculosis disease ran away from their treatment at the General Hospital to bring to the forefront the lack of legislation in place on the island to adequately address the problem.
There was naturally panic in the society as people feared for their lives if they came into contact with the two patients.
It was the second time in the week that someone being treated for TB was able to escape from the hospital and get the opportunity to mingle with the general population.
The issue did not only raise concerns about the type of security arrangements to ensure that these patients cannot leave the hospital without permission but also led to questions being asked about legislation in place to restrict and criminalise TB patients.
Seven years ago, the island faced another similar scenario with the advent of the deadly Covid-19 disease.
Health officials turned to the Public Health Act to take the country through the Pandemic.
However, the act is limited to restricting the movement of persons entering the island to quarantine them for a specific period of time before allowing them to go into the public space.
The CMO was empowered to move persons entering the island from any port of entry such as the Maurice Bishop International Airport (MBIA) to identified places of Quarantine.
However, there was no legislation in place at the time to criminalise persons who were already on the island and engaged in the kinds of behavior that can endanger the rest of the society.
In the past seven years, our Health officials did absolutely nothing to put legislation in place that could be taken to Parliament for approval to seriously address the situation with the two runaway TB patients.
The Minister of Health Phillip Telesford and his Team were left holding onto an empty bag as the State was powerless to deal harshly with the two Patients who could have exposed many persons in the country by their deliberate act to leave the Hospital without authorisation.
THE NEW TODAY will not get into any blame game but instead call on the authorities in the Ministry of Health to get down to work and to put the legislation in place to handle any future occurrence.
The two administrations in charge of the island since Covid-19 – the New National Party (NNP) of Keith Mitchell and Dickon Mitchell’s Congress have dropped the ball and those now in charge at the Botanical Gardens should get the public officers to do what they have to do on behalf of the nation.
One of the major problems in the country is the failure of government ministers over the years to ask Public Officers in positions such as Permanent Secretary to account for their stewardship especially when it comes to putting certain systems in place for the governance of the country.
In the current situation, the Minister of Health should hold the CMO and others in the Health sector who have a role to play in putting the legislation in place to account to Grenadians for this shortcoming.
THE NEW TODAY would also like to make some passing comments on the upcoming visit to the island of Dr Milagros Flores Roman, the President of the International Committee of ICOMOS on Fortifications and Military Heritage and who is also the Secretary-General of ICOFORT.
There is a saying that a bad breeze never blows and some good could be coming out of the visit which arose from a court action between the Grenada National Trust (GNT) and the state-run National Insurance Scheme (NIS) on plans to demolish the Drill Yard on Young Street.
The GNT was able to attract worldwide attention in its court case in which a high court judge granted it an injunction against NIS until certain things are put in place that can result in an alternative plan to save this Heritage Site.
The Trust started an international campaign in which Dr Flores got involved and a few days ago wrote a letter to the Minister of Tourism and Culture, Sen. Adrian Thomas and also committed to visiting Grenada to look at the situation.
The leaders of the country should take advantage of this high-powered visit of a lady who holds two powerful and influential positions linked to UNESCO just like the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) of Maurice Bishop did in the 1979-83 period when the Director General of UNESCO, the Senegalese-born Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow paid a visit to the island.
The Revolutionary leaders were able to strengthen their relations with UNESCO and submit a number of projects thereafter for funding which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing into the country.
The task now for Congress is to use the visit of Dr Flores to help open the door for possible funding on a number of Heritage sites in the country such as the Public Library, the old Parliament building at York House and the restoration of the residence of the Governor-General which were destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The government should dialogue with GNT on the way forward since the Trust has within its rank a particular individual who can help unlock some of the closed doors where funding is concerned especially through the use of drawing up projects in a timely manner.
This is an area where the country has a serious deficit because of the presence of too many “square pegs in round holes” who are being highly paid but with little success to show in attracting serious project finance for the development of the country.
Our neighbours like Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, St Lucia and Jamaica are way ahead of us in tapping into UN funds for projects to benefit the people of the country.