The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs has received a generous donation of one hundred (100) Pulse Oximeters from local children’s charity, Irie Kids Inc. The Organization collaborated with Rise Saint Lucia Inc. to contribute the medical devices that can assist in the national fight against COVID 19. Executive Director, Kim Williams says Irie Kids aims to improve the lives of children across the Island. “On behalf of our founder Lisa Ann Jarvis and all the executive board members, we would like to present to the Government and people of Saint Lucia one hundred oximeters. An oximeter is a device used to measure your oxygen level. I hope this will go a long way in helping us fight the COVID19 pandemic.”

Rise St. Lucia Inc.’s Head of Board of Directors, Dr. Venus Cherry, expressed hope for the longevity of the collaboration in the fight against COVID19. He explained that the public too can play its part in this fight by getting vaccinated and following the protocols. “We’re hoping that this collaboration between Ministry of Health, Irie Kids and RISE St. Lucia is a continued one as we all are Saint Lucians hoping and seeking to eradicate COVID19 from our society, our country and the world. I just want to take this time to caution every Saint Lucian, if you are not vaccinated, get vaccinated. I’m not here to sell you on the vaccine will provide immunity, what I can tell you is, if you are vaccinated the likelihood of you catching COVID and getting extremely sick and getting hospitalized and being a burden on our health system is extremely, extremely low. And I’m not just talking from someone who is saying to do it, I am vaccinated myself, not because I have all the answers or think that I have immunity, in fact I caution every person who is fully vaccinated to follow the protocols even further.”

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar – George expressed gratitude for the donation, adding that it will greatly aid medical practitioners and will be put to immediate use. “At this point as we manage the forth wave, this is the highest number of persons that we have had requiring home care or home isolation so these pulse oximeters will be used so that they can assist use in self-monitoring because as we know COVID19 causes respiratory signs and symptoms and one of the early signs is that we note the oxygen saturation starts to go down. So this will be an extremely valuable tools to support our home monitoring program. We have a team of physicians and nurses monitoring our patients within the community so this will assist us in getting a very early alert that someone may not be doing as well. We are almost positive that they will be used within the week and we will use it in a sustainable way so that when our patients recover we can disinfect them and use them for other patients. The Ministry of Health as everybody knows we have been managing COVID for the last 18 months and it is extremely important those collaborations, we cannot do it alone, we need the support and the collaboration of different groups as we manage this pandemic together. So I really hope that this is just a start of a sustainable collaboration. We really appreciate this donation.”

Dr. Sharon Belmar - George citing the data, also encouraged members of the public to get vaccinated. “We are seeing in our data, so far we just calculated the latest numbers, we only have 2% of persons who have been fully vaccinated who have passed away with COVID related symptoms but the 2% had other serious underlying conditions. So the majority of our patients that we see at the Respiratory Hospital are unvaccinated. Those who pass away the majority 98% are unvaccinated. So we want to continue appealing to the public to keep themselves, their families safe and just as Dr. Cherry very, very well said we have to continue monitoring the protocols and to be responsible at this time. We are seeing reduction in the rate of transmission which is hopeful but we cannot get complacent as yet, we have to bring the active cases a lot lower. We are seeing the increases in the recovery but we cannot get complacent, until, let us get to a safe level before we make any changes.”