Black Immigrant Daily News

The Health Ministry will be lifting the visitation restrictions in place at the Infectious Diseases Hospital as early as next week.

Speaking during today’s COVID-19 update, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony said there are few COVID-19 patients at the institution.

The hospital is also now accommodating patients with other infectious diseases.

“The majority of patients that we have there are for other diseases. We have taken a decision that we are changing the visitation rules because when we only had covid-19 patients, we were not allowing people to visit patients in the hospital, so we are changing the rules, we will be allowed visitation,” the Minister noted.

The Health Ministry will lay out the ground rules for visitation in the new week.

Minister Anthony said there are several other infectious diseases in Guyana which may require hospitalisation.

In that regard, persons visiting the facility must meet some requirements.

Persons will be required to wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) which will be provided by the hospital.

“So, there are several infectious diseases that we would normally work on and unfortunately some of the patients would require hospitalisation. So, in cases of TB, for example, some of these patients require hospitalisation and we have been using the facilities that we have at ocean view to hospitalise some of these infectious disease patients…So that’s why anybody who is coming there should take protective measures. When we open it up, we hope that the general public would cooperate with us,” Minister Anthony stated.

Dr Anthony announced too that the requirement for persons to do PCR tests before surgery has also been lifted.

“This is just an additional requirement for them to know maybe the status of the patient, but what we found sometimes it has become now a barrier preventing people from accessing surgery that has been planned, causing numerous delays and so forth. So, we think that we can change it, make it easier for these patients who require surgery to be able to access that surgery,” Dr Anthony said.

Over the last 24 hours, there have been four new cases of COVID-19, with 51 active infections.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority says it has successfully completed its 2022 UK Roadshow.

The roadshows were held from September 26th to September 29th in the cities of London, Bath, Cheltenham and Manchester.

Each night’s event was attended by UK-based travel agents who saw a number of promotional presentations showcasing the multi-island destination of St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as specific properties represented.

The Tourism Authority says the roadshow is expected to further bolster travel from Europe to SVG as travel agents are better trained and informed to sell SVG as a destination to their clients in search of “The Caribbean you’re looking for.”

Virgin Atlantic currently operates twice-weekly (Sundays and Wednesdays) flights between London Heathrow International Airport and Argyle International Airport.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Ministry of Health, Wellness, and the Environment, says it has discontinued the daily publication of the Covid-19 statistics dashboard and update, with effect from Tuesday October 4th.

The Ministry says, starting this week it will be replaced by a once weekly publication of the Covid-19 Statistics.  It said the daily  Covid-19 Statistics report may resume, if the Covid-19 situation escalates.

According to the weekly update from the Ministry, there are currently two active cases of Covid 19 recorded here from Rapid Antigen Tests. One unvaccinated persons is currently hospitalized with Covid 19.

9,450 cases of COVID-19 and 9,332 recoveries have been reported in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to date.   116 people have died from the virus.

And, 72,875 COVID-19 vaccines have so far been administered locally.  37,285 persons have received their first dose;  31,406  have received  their second dose and 4,184 persons have received boosters.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

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Black Immigrant Daily News

According to Barbadian psychologist Shawn Clarke, an “alarming” number of Barbadian students are struggling with mental health issues.

The CEO/director of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development (SCPD) was speaking on Wednesday at the Hilton Resort about the SCPD’s ‘Reach One, Save One” campaign when he reported the concerning findings of a study conducted last year.

The November 2021 study conducted by the SCPD amongst 11- to 18-year-olds reported that “young people showed alarming negative perceptions of self”.

The study was administered to First to Sixth Formers at 19 secondary schools across the island, with 6,337 students – 38 per cent of the students – completing the questionnaire out of 16, 748 .

Clarke revealed that 26 per cent of the respondents showed a negative perception of self and 25 per cent of the participants confessed to having suicidal thoughts often. Additionally, 34 per cent said they were depressed often.

Noting that the study only accounted for just over a quarter of the student population, Clarke voiced that the numbers might be higher.

“It brings the question therefore that if we were able to survey 80 per cent of that population, what would the numbers be like?,” said the CEO.

“The study revealed that many students had difficulty maintaining their mental health, handling conflict and controlling anger,” he continued.

Clarke also reported that 33 per cent of the students reported that they were sad often and approximately 1, 950 – 30 per cent – showed some mental health concerns.

Broaching on the topic of handling conflict, 35 per cent stated they could not resolve conflict and 25 per cent had weak conflict resolution skills. The SCPD CEO shared that an average of 2, 956 students – 47 per cent – showed anger management concerns; 61 per cent of the students said they got angry quickly and 39 per cent confessed they could not manage their anger.

“They cannot talk things out. The first thing they go to is fighting, cursing, getting involved in those antisocial behaviours,” Clarke explained.

The CEO of SCPD shared that the newly established Rescue One, Save One initiative sought to address the problems the youth faced in the school and the community and find a “remedy”.

The programme is divided into three main components – Project Rescue which focuses on the school environment; Families in Therapy (FIT) Programme and the Community Assistance Programme (CAP).

“Many of these risky behaviours amongst adolescents are linked to their upbringing, their living conditions, parent-child relationships and peer interactions, both the students and teachers perceived parenting skills and the home environment, as the most significant contributor to disruptive behaviour… many external factors shape adolescents’ coping strategies and behaviours. We are providing single parents with the tools and techniques for coping with and overcoming their difficult situations. We can help create better parent-child relationships and emotionally agile Barbadian citizens,” Clarke emphasised.

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