Late test results causes missed flights! Health Minister apologises
Health Minister Carvin Malone has issued an apology to persons negatively affected by long waits for COVID-19 test results in the BVI.
Amid the current upsurge of coronavirus cases locally, several persons have complained of having to make revised travel arrangements while others said they’ve missed flights altogether because of the late delivery of their test results.
During the governing Virgin Islands Party Let’s Talk radio show on July 20, Malone said health officials, who are reportedly overwhelmed, are working hard to correct this challenge and will make the necessary adjustments to prevent any further inconveniences to the travelling public or to persons who were similarly affected.
“We have turned out 13,500 results. Some of them have caused people to miss their flights. We sincerely apologise for that,” the Health Minister said.
Rapid tests at ports
Malone also said rapid tests are expected to be deployed at the local airport and seaports shortly.
The minister explained that there are some 30,000 rapid test kits “sitting right now” and said these should have been made available sooner but his team is still working on a strategy on how to best implement it.
He said it is important that the integrity of the process remains intact. Otherwise, persons travelling from the BVI would experience ramifications in the long term.
Meanwhile, government’s challenge to release results sooner have come at a time when the US Virgin Islands amended its travel protocols to require persons leaving the BVI to provide negative COVID-19 test results at least 48 hours before departure.
This has raised questions about whether the local hospital has the capacity to facilitate this change.
The BVIHSA recently issued a call for retired health professionals to assist the team at the Dr D Orlando Smith Hospital and a request for volunteers has also been circulated to help abate the challenges faced by health officials.
Just recently, the Health Ministry made it clear that the Dr D Orlando Smith Hospital was the only facility authorised to conduct COVID tests. The ministry later said it was working with the management of Eureka to bring their PCR testing capacity online in a “safe and effective manner”.
Medicure refutes Health Ministry’s statements on COVID-19 testing
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You need help and afraid or too full of yourself to allow the help. There are other labs in the BVI where people could have gone and get their tests done, but you want to micromanage and feel you and Dr. G must control everything with covid as if youall are the answers.
I strongly agree! As if only Hospital to make money when the test should have been FREE
Stuffed chicken turned out to be. Ministry of Health has gone to the dogs
Malone don’t apologize because you don’t mean it. You don’t care if people missed their flight or were delayed and it cost them hundreds of dollars. You have no ability, no knowledge and no use. You only have shame. The COI cannot move fast enough so that you are gone and replaced with someone knowledgeable.
Wrong results too?
If I talk about this one more time…..they need to STOP handing out wrong results in Peebles, with no apology. I would much prefer if Eureka handled my tests.
The Premier promised that we would have the testing capacity required when the gates were reopened to tourism last December. He never followed through and we have had inadequate capacity for the number of tests being done from the very beginning.
The Blame falls squarely on the government for cheaping out and failing to support our economy. Shame!
While the Ministry and the health authorities are not blameless bear in mind that the season we are in is one in which our numbers are near 1600 positive cases at last count with 23 deaths, 22 of them within the last few weeks. This has really stretched the testing and contact tracing capabilities of the Ministry and the HSA. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and ignoring for the moment the lack of a cohesive drive to educate the population on the pros and cons of vaccination before the anti-vax sentiment was cemented, the mistake they appear to have made was to naively assume that the bulk of the population would by now have taken up the vaccination opportunity and we would therefore not be in the current cesspit of COVID we’re all wallowing in.
Lets be fair… The testing was a joke from the beginning! Arrival, 4 day and departure testing was a joke! This is a fact, not an opinion either!
they had months to prepare and failed, they are making it where people don’t think its worth it to come here
An apology with no solution. I guess the problem will remain because they overwhelmed and wont allow no other lab in the bvi to do testing.
“First I had to do a PCR test that was $140. Up here. Then when I got home it was 110.00 the day I came in Then 2 days before I left it was 70.00 for another PCR test. It was 737 for quarantine fees. For just me alone it was almost a 1000.00”
This dear people is the true face of corona/covid.
To take deadly pandemic and turn it into a money making, people robbing and inconviencing scheme is ungodly, evil and inhumane. Leaders should be ashamed. God will deal with them in due course.
They could have done better, but they chose greed over humanity and suffering.
BVIHSA LAB MANAGEMENT is to blame Mr. Minister do not act as if you dont know what is going on. imagine asking for persons to volunteer to assist in the lab when you have workers that are being asked to remove themselves from assisting because the “So Called Guyanese” Boss has personal issues with her STAFF. so persons will forever be missing their flights and samples will keep piling up in there! MR MINISTER I BEG YOU PLEASE Look into the NEW Management of the LAB better yet take a pass in there and you will see exactly what is going on the staff is complaining and NO ONE is listening.
People have have spoken to boss lady Mrs Smith, Mr. Malone and others and NOTHING has been done, now they’re looking staff?
The problem is WITHIN must be addressed and Carvin Malone, you KNOW what they are but REFUSED to address it and Mrs Smith isn’t going to do ANYTHING, therefore, things won’t get any better…
DEAL WITH THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!!!
It has become a money extorting scheme. Persons working at the same hospital is running their personal lab scheme business and extorting folks of 30p 400 and 500 for pcr tests. Check it out closely.
Now if you go to the hospital and ask for a pcr test with an appointment if you are travelling that you had already told the price is 70 they are asking you to pay 100 or 200 depends on who you meet for an expedited result. Now imagine missing your flight because you did not get that result. The ministry should pay for a new flight it’s that simple. Wait when some lawsuits start passing.
To be honest Penn medical delivers a superb service. Its located at the marina at prospect reef.
Missing NDP a whole lot.
Better yet they chase the lady with the locks who was in charge just because she stand up for her staff being paid overtime owed for all this extra work load that COVID brought on the same lab. But they won’t look into it cause they been aware of the situation. Taking 3 of them to do what 1 lady was doin.
There were only 100-200 samples during the early part of the year, compared to current situation lab receives 600-1000 samples a day and mist are travelers. So STOP comparing.
Hahaha
@Hmmm I know you
What COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca contains
One dose (0.5 ml) contains: COVID-19 Vaccine (ChAdOx1-S* recombinant) 5 × 10^10 viral particles (vp)
*Recombinant, replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vector encoding the SARS-CoV-2 Spike glycoprotein. Produced in genetically modified human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells.
This product contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The other excipients are:
L-histidineL-histidine hydrochloride monohydratemagnesium chloride hexahydratepolysorbate 80 (E 433)ethanolsucrosesodium chloridedisodium edetate dihydratewater for injections
(see section 2. COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca contains sodium and alcohol
It’s not a time to be flying anywhere :-/
I HOPE YOU PRACTICING YOUR ( WE SHALL OVERCOME SONG FOR THE MARCH) AGAINST THE RACIST BRITISH / WE GOT DO IT LIKE THE ( BLACK LIVES MATTER ) 3 STOOGES ???
Any more crown land giving way..I’m a track star too.CIO.. please make sure no crown land give way..unless,all getting.. thanks
I’m chartering a boat with 3 other couples in the near future. How do we get a COVID test 48 hours before we are to fly home if we are on our boat at a remote island? Cancel the trip?