Sands: Country is on its knees – Bahamas Tribune

Dr Duane Sands on the campaign trail.

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE COVID-19 crisis has forced The Bahamas to its knees, former Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said yesterday, as he recalled his distress at the toll the virus has taken on Bahamian lives.

As a health care worker who is actively involved in the care of COVID patients it distresses me how many people are sick in hospital, how many people are dying and how many more are likely to die, Dr Sands said yesterday of the situation at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

COVID-19 hospital admissions have continued to climb, jumping from 191 on Monday a previous record to a record 193 on Tuesday.

This number is the highest tally of hospital cases since the start of the pandemic.

Sixty of those cases are in Doctors Hospital, nine are at the South Beach Acute Care and Referral Centre, 104 are at PMH and 20 are at Grand Bahama Health Services.

Fifteen patients are in the intensive care unit.

On Monday, the Ministry of Health added seven new COVID related deaths, pushing the death count to 453.

Dr Sands said The Bahamas is facing what much of the world has experienced in prior months.

We have seen this in other countries. Weve seen this in India. Weve seen this in the United States. Weve seen it in Great Britain. Weve seen it in Italy and elsewhere. At a particular point in time many of those places I just named were similarly on their knees.

This is our time, and it is by cooperation, it is by rigid adherence and discipline to public health measures and an adopting of vaccination that were going to get out of this. We cannot flaunt the public health measures and refuse vaccination given the challenges that we are already having with the healthcare system and expect this to turn out well.

I dont believe this is an effective time for finger-pointing. I think what we ought to be doing is collectively working together to solve what is an horrendous problem and if we do that, we may emerge somewhat intact, but right now the situation is grim.

It is bad out there.

He insisted there must be a greater focus on health protocols.

To people who are worried about their safety, public health measures are very effective hand washing, social distancing (and) mask wearing. Its really effective even against the Delta variant and so you can protect yourself by using those methods and I would strongly suggest that people do so.

I also strongly suggest that people get vaccinated although vaccination is not going to provide them with protection in the immediate term. So, if you get vaccinated today it is gonna take you some time before that vaccine confers a level of immunologic protection, but its a critical part of the way forward.

Weve managed to vaccinate some 30,000 people in the last two weeks. I think thats good. We should hopefully get to do some more and lets continue to fight this thing as aggressively as we can.

This ought to be an all of country response and I dont think that any of us from the competent authority down to the smallest child who can make a decision for themselves, can be exempt from participating in the process of keeping The Bahamas safe.

So, we all need to look at our behaviour. We all need to look at the policies being made, Dr Sands said.

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Sands: Country is on its knees - Bahamas Tribune