(Barbados Nation) – Barbados has turned down a request to accommodate a number of Haitians injured in the January 12 earthquake, including amputees.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Maxine McClean said on Thursday that Barbados had been forced to turn down the request from the United States Embassy, partly because of the implications it had for the island’s under-pressure medical services, including a shortage of hospital beds.
The request, made through the Chargé d’Affaires Dr Brent Hardt pointed to the need “to probably accommodate persons with orthopaedic injuries, head injuries, spinal injuries, as well as after-care for amputee cases” along with relatives to support the injured, McClean said.
In an earlier interview with the Weekend Nation, Hardt said the significant “medical capacity” in the Caribbean, would be well placed to treat the injured Haitians.
“Although hospital capacity varies from country to country, some of the capacities are limited, there may be scope for some sort of support in that area,” he said.
But on Thursday, McClean told the Press: “ . . . As we all know, we are currently struggling to bring our health system back to the desired levels of capacity and service delivery and therefore I do not anticipate that such a request can be honoured as articulated, because we have, first and foremost, to ensure that we are able to meet the demands.
“We all know the situation with beds and whether it’s in general wards or the Surgical & Intensive Care (Unit) and therefore the truth is, we simply are not in a position to provide that support at this time because we are not talking about a short-term minor situation.
“We are talking about serious care, which we are probably not able to deliver in Barbados.”
Hardt explained in the earlier interview that the idea of bringing patients to Barbados and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean was discussed in the embassy a few days ago, but it wasn’t clear there was an immediate need for that step to be taken.
“We were looking at whether countries in the Caribbean might be able to take on the patients who were being treated on the US Comfort ship (a naval hospital vessel), or maybe some other areas, patients who need post-operative care,” he explained.
