President of the Public Services Association (PSA), Watson Duke, says that the rise in Covid-19 cases in Tobago, particularly at the Scarborough General Hospital (SGH), is solely due to Health Secretary Tracy Davidson-Celestine and her lack of direction. Duke gave this comment following multiple reports made to the PSA by its Tobagonian members.

Members of the PSA employed at the Trinidad and Tobago’s Red Cross and the Scarborough General Hospital described the rise in positive Covid-19 cases as overwhelming. 

Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), Assemblyman Dr. Faith B.Yisrael, also speaking on the rise of positive Covid-19 cases at the hospital, denoted two main reasons as its cause. She said that it all boiled down to lack of leadership and lack of proper mechanisms in place to mitigate the rapid spread of the virus. 

Dr. B.Yisrael stated that the policy that governed the mitigation of the Covid-19 virus at the hospital was inefficient and left loopholes for easy spread of the virus. 

She said that according to a July’s press release, only symptomatic patients were tested for the virus; this she said would easily enable the spread of the virus, as asymptomatic patients were not tested.

She said that whilst Trinidad had parallel health care systems, Tobago was operating without one and that the machinery used for testing samples were slow and allowed for only two samples to be tested per hour.