Mother blasts Lethem quarantine facilities for carelessness

…after children left unsupervised

Colini DaSilva, a mother of two primary school children who had returned from Brazil to attend school in Lethem, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), is concerned about the level of care they are receiving in the region’s quarantine facility.
She is claiming that scores of children, including two who were tested positive for the novel coronavirus, are being left unsupervised at the facility, which is the Region Nine Guest House.
“The children won’t stay locked up in the room if they have nobody there to supervise them. They all scared, because two children test positive and they know that everybody there can be positive,” the worried mother lamented during an interview with Guyana Times.
The woman is fearful that her children, aged nine and 11, who both initially tested negative for the virus, would become positive when they are tested again, since they are allowed to mingle with the other students.
“I see everybody together. The whole set of people that they bring, they put them all together,” she stated.
Additionally, she is concerned about the quality of meals being provided to those in the quarantine/isolation facility. According to the woman, the meals lack nutrients.
“I would carry fruits, ginger, lemongrass tea for my children. I even give the people them up there…My son tell me that they giving them boiled eggs morning and evening,” the woman revealed, noting that better food should be served to improve the patients’ immune systems.
Moreover, the mother told this publication that she has observed that those charged with overlooking the children would leave them alone in the upper flat of the building while they would be in the lower flat throughout the day.
“They [children] will not stay locked up in the room if there is no supervisor there. The man who does be there, he does be downstairs. You think he would want to go up there? He frighten bad! Everybody frighten now that they know that two children are positive,” the mother reasoned.

Exams
The students recently returned to Guyana from Brazil to write the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) and the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) exams.
DaSilva explained that her children were in Brazil when she received a call from representatives of the Ministry of Education, telling her that her daughter, who is a Grade Six student, had to return to Guyana to prepare for the NGSA exams.
Having been successfully convinced that her child would be in good hands, she agreed to have both of her children return.
“The Education people called me. I was going to leave my children in Brazil, but they told me that they wanted to bring them. They then took a bus and brought them and another group of children… now two persons are positive. My children can be positive, because my daughter was with the girl that was positive all over, and nobody was wearing any mask,” the woman explained, noting that she has now regretted her decision to bring her children to Guyana.
Compounding the situation, DaSilva explained that after transporting her children to Guyana, the Ministry’s representatives refused to tell her where they were taking her children. She pointed out that she had to drive behind the bus they were being transported in, and then is when she was told that they were being taken to the Region Nine Guest House.
“When they drop them off there, I went in the evening and see my kids. When I go there, I see everybody together; everybody that they bring they put them all together,” she recalled.
Additionally, DaSilva explained that her daughter, who will be writing the upcoming exams, is not being encouraged by the administrators to study.
In fact, the woman highlighted that since her daughter arrived at the facility, it is only one day that she received a worksheet or any kind of work to prepare her for the exams.
Students writing the NGSA, CSEC, and CAPE in July-August returned to schools on July 15 amid strict COVID-19 guidelines.
All students are required to wear face masks and practise social distancing, while students and teachers’ temperatures are to be checked upon entering.
The exam students are required to attend school only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for approximately four hours.
On May 11, Lethem recorded its first case of COVID-19. The patient had also travelled from Brazil, which has now become the second country in the world to confirm more than one million cases of COVID-19.