Consultant Manager of Home Quarantine and a member of the Isolation and Home Quarantine Committee, Dr. Adanna Grandison, has appealed to Barbadians in home isolation to accept aid when called upon to be transported to isolation facilities for improved care.
The call came this evening as she expressed concern during a press conference at Ilaro Court about the lone death, which occurred since the start of the Home Isolation Programme on October 15.
Deeming it as unfortunate, since the person had refused transportation and escalation of care, Dr. Grandison admitted it bothered her “to see that I lose even one”.
“Even one for me is too much, and I am just appealing again to all Barbadians, please, when you are flagged, take the transport; get the necessary care that you need,” she stated, adding that if the Head of Isolation Facilities, Dr. Corey Forde, and his team considered it safe for the person to “come back out” after they had been assessed, her team would be notified.
Expressing further concerns about this issue, she noted that presently 373 persons had refused transportation, and medical care.
Reiterating the appeal, she added: “Please, I know that there are some persons who are very scared, or think there is a need to be scared to go into an isolation facility, like Harrison Point, Blackman and Gollop, Sun Bay, any of the facilities across the island. But I want to remind you that these facilities, I should say, are the best equipped facilities that we have on the island to manage COVID positive patients.
“This assessment does not always necessarily mean that you will have to stay at the facility, but the beautiful thing about being able to have an assessment at the facility, is that if the healthcare workers at the facility think that from a clinical standpoint that you require an escalation of care, they can provide the necessary care that you need at that time.”
Explaining why persons are flagged as either red or yellow, she said this was to ensure they receive the necessary care early. Dr. Grandison also expressed pleasure that the programme had successfully discharged 1,273 persons from home isolation, to date.
Pointing out that at the start there had been thousands of persons within the programme, she added: “But currently, we have 4,698 total persons out in community, of which there are nine … in terms of our very emergent cases out in community at this point in time, and we expect that those persons would be removed from community within a maximum of approximately two hours.
“Then, we have our yellow persons, who are persons that based upon either the symptomatology pattern that they have, or their comorbidity status, or even for social reasons we think that they would need to have a closer review at an isolation facility, and currently, we have 344 of them out in community. But I’m proud to say for the majority of my Barbadians and visitors who are within the home isolation programme, they’re actually safe.”
With 2,470 persons also considered currently safe within home isolation, the consultant said: “From the start of the programme, we’ve had 907 persons who have been transported to these facilities as well as 212 persons who are already in facilities at the point of contact.”