WHEN Dr Michael Darville rises to give his first speech as Health and Wellness Minister in the House of Assembly tomorrow, there will be a lot riding on his shoulders.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to beset the nation – and will do for some time yet to come, and it will be Dr Darville at the forefront of the fight against the virus.
In that light, his latest comments explaining why there has been an increase in deaths from the virus recently are far from comforting.
After taking office, Dr Darville has pointed the finger of blame fairly firmly at the administration of Dr Hubert Minnis for problems facing the country in the fight against COVID.
First, it was a need for emergency funding, then he blamed a shortage of vaccines on the former administration, claiming someone forgot to order them, a claim he didn’t back up with evidence and which was rejected by Dr Minnis.
However, it was the way he said it that was curious. “I would like to also say this. I didn’t want to, but when I came to office we realised that the reason why we experienced the delay in the Pfizer from the COVAX facility was because the former administration, someone forgot to apply and as a result of that it pushed us in the back.”
I would like to say this, or I didn’t want to? Which was it, Dr Darville?
We are now nearing the end of October and the fight against COVID is firmly in the new government’s hands – and yesterday Dr Darville spoke again on the issue.
He suggested that one of the reasons for increased deaths at present is that people are leaving it too late to seek medical help.
He said: “We are very concerned about our death rate and we believe that is directly related to individuals who are COVID positive presenting at our tertiary healthcare facilities at the advanced stages of COVID pneumonia.”
Dr Darville added that the patients “have great difficulty breathing. They call the emergency medical facilities and they present to the hospital with advanced stages of the disease and COVID is one of those slippery slopes. If you are one of those individuals who are on that slope and the medical emergency team executes medical protocols to save you, there is going to be some individuals who are not going to make it, unfortunately.”
That sounds dangerously close to blaming the patients for not calling the doctor soon enough. Has Dr Darville moved on from blaming the FNM to blaming the dead? If not, he ought to be clearer.
More to the point, why all of a sudden would patients be delaying a call to medical experts for help in recent weeks?
Even if that’s the case, it surely represents a failure of leadership to pass on information to the country about when people should be seeking assistance. Most people aren’t doctors – they need to be aware of what to watch out for, and when to pick up the phone to ask for help.
Dr Darville said: “We have to find a better way to interface the public medical community with those individuals. We have a plan on how we intend to do that because early detection and early treatment is paramount in order for survival with COVID-19.”
A plan is all well and good but Dr Darville, you now have a platform in front of the whole nation. You might remember the regular briefings given in the early days of COVID. Why not avail yourself of that opportunity and stand up and tell the country what symptoms they should be looking out for as the trigger to call for help?
Free testing appears to be one of the cornerstones of the PLP plan, but that is so far only being rolled out in islands with smaller populations and where there are spikes in cases. That isn’t going to catch an early case in, say, Fox Hill or Golden Gates. So what is the plan for the rest of the country?
Does Dr Darville have any evidence that people are changing their behaviour in terms of when to call for help? If so, show us and make clear what people need to do if they fear they are infected with COVID.
What we need is not a sense of apportioning blame, but information. Dr Darville is the man in the hot seat now. It’s up to him.
We will watch with interest to see if he reveals his plan tomorrow. There’s no time to wait.
Comments
carltonr61 3 years, 1 month ago
Dr Darville cannot take charge of an ever evolving Covid data stream equation. Stop being rediculous please. The vaccine remains in emergency use authorization testing phase even though the world has seen concrete substantial failures it has been gatewayed to permanency by powerful global money holders and investors. Darville can barely engage commonsense or they squeeze tourism even harder and increase global pressure points. Many world leaders have died who attempt an independent rational other than PAHO narrative. Great though that Israel has green lighted the world's safest and true Vax, the Sputnik V. Hope it gets here soon.
https://sputniknews.com/20210930/antibo…
carltonr61 3 years, 1 month ago
Today's CDC Data greenlight a 4th shot rather that call the Vax a failure. It has also stealthily changed the meaning of vaccine in order to comply with big pharma controllers. Don't be lazy. Research. 🙏
sheeprunner12 3 years, 1 month ago
The PLP is compromised when it comes to handling Covid. Darville will continue his gimmicks. All they can do is pretend to try and do something to show up what the FNM did. So we'll see the gimmicks continue and blame game play out in Parliament while our ppl continue to suffer & die.
carltonr61 3 years, 1 month ago
Sheep. The FMM never moved a brain muscle in its staging of Covid. Minnis simply followed PAHO zombie dictatorship of criminal cruelty upon humans. While science data revealed Covid could not exist in sunshine minnis closed the beaches with 18 deaths for a year and PAHO said nothing even though it was insane and stupid. We need an inquiry into FNM Covid response from OPM that totally sidelined Bahamian Medical/Psychiatric Professional relaying instead on inhumane cold, political tyrannical iron gloved logic. Even as world covid narrative data changed through revelations of drastic outcomes the PAHO still calls a third shot a booster. The narrative by CDC says a booster should be a half dose.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 1 month ago
exactly. It was literally like noone could think. Two doctors here implied that it was literally impossible for Bahamian doctors to do any research! And that data they reporting... something went seriously wrong with those tallies because theyve cut out all info that would allow anyone to make sense of it.
FrustratedBusinessman 3 years, 1 month ago
"Two doctors here implied that it was literally impossible for Bahamian doctors to do any research! "
This phenomenon is well documented. There will be a Bahamian that has lived, studied, and worked abroad that can rightfully be considered knowledgeable in their field, but the government (and Bahamian society as a whole) will automatically discount anything that they have to say in favour of listening to some foreigner that has no credentials that is only looking to shake them down for some easy money.
The Minnis government was particularly horrible with this, they would get wide eyed anytime some "expert" from outside would dangle a shiny object in front of them.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 1 month ago
We gat some dangerous people in white coats BUT we also have super doctors here. On the level with the best doctors worldwide,
The problem in our country is generally we don't have objective measures to distinguish between them. We dont assess people on ability, we assess them on how they look, what shoes they have on, what car they driving, I know you or you know the people I know, who you related to, you in my party. And thats it. I am literally flabberghasted that in Kwasi's application for leadership he highlighted that he attended the same church for 40 years(???) And he thinks he can run the country on that? Funny enough alot of FNMs are today saying, yeah I think he could do it. Based on what exactly?
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 1 month ago
"Even if that’s the case, it surely represents a failure of leadership to pass on information to the country about when people should be seeking assistance. Most people aren’t doctors – they need to be aware of what to watch out for, and when to pick up the phone to ask for help."
I wish this tone had been taken with the disastrous y'all behave strategies from Renward and Minnis. What we saw for the most part was "well, we need to restart tourism so we have to get behind them Even up to yesterday there was a suggestion made that somehow we need Dr Minnis, who said a week ago that it was impossible for any of the recent deaths to be connected to the election, to help with the COVID fight!! That man appears to be clueless on science
YES the biggest problem is people are reporting too late. And THANK GOD a sensible doctor is using the national airwaves to start relaying that message. In yiur paper yesterday HE SAID there needs to be an education campaign, he SAID he's gotten this feedback from speaking with doctors treating patients. AND YES, The ONLY people who can be blamed for this not happening in over 1 year is Renward and Minnis. 630 people dead. 400 of them in the last THREE MONTHS. Dr Minnis and Renward ignored the draths gor THREE weeks so they could pretend everything was going well.That is unacceptable
whogothere 3 years, 1 month ago
"AVICENNA put two lambs in separate cages. Lambs were the same age and the same weight, and fed with the same food. All conditions were equal. However, at the same time, there was a wolf in the third cage. Only one lamb could see the wolf but not the other lamb.
Months later, the lamb who saw the wolf was cranky, restless, poorly developing, and losing weight. The lamb died whilst the other lamb remained healthy. Although the wolf did nothing to the lamb next to it, the fear and stress that lamb lived in killed it prematurely, while the other lamb that did not see the wolf, was peaceful and developed well with a healthy weight gain."
I guess we're all sheep, though just some of us just see caged wolfs...
Sooner we all stop focusing on COVID the better...focus on wholistic health as a metric societal wellbeing please...COVID is a wolf for the elderly, the fat and the immune compromised - they need protection yes as sad as that is, but the rest of us need to move on.. Children need to go to school, business need to have the confidence in government to open freely, hug grandma just take a test before hand...We're not going to vaccinate or mask ourselves out of this..but low cost widely available testing for certain situations makes complete sense..
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 1 month ago
lol. Sure stress can kill but COVID een no illusive wolf. It causes pneumonia, it causes lung, collapse, it causes blood clots, heart attacks and brain hemorrhaging, it impacts the functioning of the digestive system, it affects mobility. It is the perfect storm if left untreated
Exercise, yoga and stress reduction is a good tool though
whogothere 3 years, 1 month ago
LOL Its a 'caged wolf' for the vast majority of society - ie for most ~85% that are infected its a case of a mild headache, mild cough - or might not even know they have it...but media and politics just see all the crap you just mentioned...they leave out those 'complications' mostly happen in older, 'sick' or fat people...closing gyms, locking people in doors, keeping people in fear and keeping kids out of schools is just simply undermining society..
themessenger 3 years, 1 month ago
There sure are a lot of sheep in wolfs clothing out there lol.
TalRussell 3 years, 1 month ago
@ComradeTheMess, as well, there's a growing clan of Minnis Jong Un's sheepish kinds out there that think they really possess the political capital be heading off to a one-day convention on November 27 to get themselves crowned as the Red Party's new Jong Un Leader and everything like that, — Yes?
themessenger 3 years, 1 month ago
@ma comrade tal, the red party hopefuls have much in common with much of the governing yellows, all of them legends in their own minds- yes?
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