Ramadhar: Create priority list to bring stranded nationals home

St Augustine MP Prakash Ramadhar has called on Government to create priority list to return nationals stranded abroad due to the closure of the borders as part of covid19 restrictions.

In a statement Ramadhar asked, as TT celebrated not having a single new case of the dreaded virus, what was happening with the almost 1,000 beds created in the parallel health system to accommodate potential victims of covid19. He also asked what resources were being expended at this point in time to “emptiness”.

He questioned that following the closure of the borders whether Government could not have immediately put a system in place to ascertain who TT citizen are in every part of the world and who wished to return home. Ramadhar said he was speaking of people who had gone on short-term stays, who live and reside in of TT, but found themselves on the wrong side of an artificial date and time – midnight March 22.

“They could not have returned home from that date up till now. They are now suffering, not just the indignity of a country that refuses to allow them to return to their homes and to their families, but to the real world problems of lack of money, fear and worry about food, where they will stay, and fear about being exposed to many other evils.

“I say now, Minister of National Security, Minister of Health, and Chief Medical Officer, we have the capacity. Why can we not bring our citizens back home, starting now?”

He advised that the nationals could be put into the almost 1000 beds that are in the facilities that have been created.

“Let them go into the quarantine, let them be tested, and we cycle this every 14 days, whatever the capacity is. If not almost 1000 beds, then 500; if not 500, then 100. So in every 14 days you would have a known number of persons who will come in, be quarantined, be tested. For those who are ill, let them be treated. Those who are well, let them be returned to the loving embrace of their families.”