Dear Editor,
It is said experience is the best teacher, but clearly not in this country. There is also another saying that if you do the same thing more than once then it is not a mistake; it is deliberate. That is what happens in this country.
With the threat of a global Ebola outbreak in the air and CHIKV still lingering, one would have thought that our authorities would have responded with a sense of urgency and purpose. There is absolutely no acceptable explanation why a Liberian man should have landed on the shores of Jamaica and send our immigration officers into a state of panic. They should have been prepared for this eventuality. We clearly did not learn anything from the handling of CHIKV and other events.
Critical information on CHIKV was rationed to the nation. Consequently, people started suffering and public outcry jolted the Government to respond. They have since launched massive clean-up efforts across the island.
The old adage says "it is never too late for a shower of rain". However, in this case it is. Had our Government launched this clean-up initiative before the virus got to Jamaica we could have prevented this level of outbreak. If the people were adequately informed, we would not have had an epidemic. It is now at a stage where it has swallowed several lives.
CHIKV has not yet bid its goodbye and here we are facing the possibility of another more deadly plague, and yet we have a similar unhurried response to this more fatal disease. This is quite frightening.
It has been reported in the media that the authorities have been putting things in place for eventuality, as they have identified isolation areas in our hospitals where suspected patients can be quarantined. Yet, a critical aspect that should have been a priority was overlooked. How can we identify areas for isolation in hospitals before putting things in place to protect our borders? Why is that? Is it because the prime minister has stopped travelling so frequently?
This Ebola threat should not have caught us unaware. We knew the risks. We cannot sit idly by and wait on other countries to protect us. Why did this Liberian have to show up before we locked ourselves in a high security meeting? Other Caribbean islands, such as St Lucia, have already imposed travel ban on people from the countries where the Ebola outbreak is chronic. Why couldn't we have done something similar? Who knows what the nation has been exposed to? We do this all the time. We react instead of prevent. We seldom put preventative measures in place. We lay in wait for something to happen to light a fire beneath our feet to get us running a thousand miles per hour.
The Government continues to brag about passing International Monetary Fund tests, but it is quite unfortunate they cannot do the same for the people's test. The chikungunya outbreak was one of the tests the Government took and they failed it miserably, and their current trajectory with Ebola preparation is also an F.
Dorraine Reid
rainereid@gmail.com
Our reactive Gov't failed the people's test
-->
It is said experience is the best teacher, but clearly not in this country. There is also another saying that if you do the same thing more than once then it is not a mistake; it is deliberate. That is what happens in this country.
With the threat of a global Ebola outbreak in the air and CHIKV still lingering, one would have thought that our authorities would have responded with a sense of urgency and purpose. There is absolutely no acceptable explanation why a Liberian man should have landed on the shores of Jamaica and send our immigration officers into a state of panic. They should have been prepared for this eventuality. We clearly did not learn anything from the handling of CHIKV and other events.
Critical information on CHIKV was rationed to the nation. Consequently, people started suffering and public outcry jolted the Government to respond. They have since launched massive clean-up efforts across the island.
The old adage says "it is never too late for a shower of rain". However, in this case it is. Had our Government launched this clean-up initiative before the virus got to Jamaica we could have prevented this level of outbreak. If the people were adequately informed, we would not have had an epidemic. It is now at a stage where it has swallowed several lives.
CHIKV has not yet bid its goodbye and here we are facing the possibility of another more deadly plague, and yet we have a similar unhurried response to this more fatal disease. This is quite frightening.
It has been reported in the media that the authorities have been putting things in place for eventuality, as they have identified isolation areas in our hospitals where suspected patients can be quarantined. Yet, a critical aspect that should have been a priority was overlooked. How can we identify areas for isolation in hospitals before putting things in place to protect our borders? Why is that? Is it because the prime minister has stopped travelling so frequently?
This Ebola threat should not have caught us unaware. We knew the risks. We cannot sit idly by and wait on other countries to protect us. Why did this Liberian have to show up before we locked ourselves in a high security meeting? Other Caribbean islands, such as St Lucia, have already imposed travel ban on people from the countries where the Ebola outbreak is chronic. Why couldn't we have done something similar? Who knows what the nation has been exposed to? We do this all the time. We react instead of prevent. We seldom put preventative measures in place. We lay in wait for something to happen to light a fire beneath our feet to get us running a thousand miles per hour.
The Government continues to brag about passing International Monetary Fund tests, but it is quite unfortunate they cannot do the same for the people's test. The chikungunya outbreak was one of the tests the Government took and they failed it miserably, and their current trajectory with Ebola preparation is also an F.
Dorraine Reid
rainereid@gmail.com
Our reactive Gov't failed the people's test
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