ANTIGUA Kingsbrook protest rally
LONDON SPAT
AstraZeneca vaccines to be used among
islanders. “I look forward to a favorable
response to my proposal.”
Browne said that once a travel advisory
was put out by British health, hotel officials
were forced to watch helplessly as hotel cancellations
spiked and as the island’s tourism
product came under attack. He said the
island would now have to borrow money to
repair the damage done by the allegation
about the new variant being discovered in
Antigua being bandied about. “Antigua and
Barbuda is highly dependent on tourism
and has long been a favored holiday destination
for British tourists but the report that
went viral after it was picked up by international
media, has caused hotel bookings to
be cancelled.”
The spat between Antigua and Britain
has come at a time when governments are
scrambling to secure enough vaccines to
distribute among citizens as it is becoming
clearer with each passing day that the
international travel industry will demand
passengers produce evidence that they had
already been vaccinated.
Guyana and Trinidad, for example, this
week used the opportunity of online meetings
with Chinese President Xi Jingping to
plead for greater quantities of vaccines as
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Caribbean L 14 ife, MARCH 19-25, 2021
they discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and
other issues, including the controversial
belt and road initiative. Many governments
have complained about paying for supplies
to the international COVAX umbrella acquisition
and distribution system but are yet
to receive allocations as the richer western
nations have snapped up available supplies.
It is unclear if the Chinese head of state
plans to hold similar online meetings with
other leaders like Barbados, Jamaica, The
Bahamas, Suriname and others. CARICOM
and China will next year observe 50 years
of largely unbroken relation. Back in 1972,
Guyana persuaded Jamaica, Trinidad and
Barbados to join it in ending China’s hemispheric
isolation as a group. The rest is
history.
Continued from cover
ty net hospital,” she added.
According to Keefe, speakers pointed
out that “the pandemic proves the
ongoing need for inpatient bed capacity
and that the closure stands to worsen
health disparities between rich and
poor neighborhoods.”
Keefe said there are currently 2.2
hospital beds for every 1,000 residents
in Brooklyn, “far fewer than the 6.4
beds per 1,000 residents that exist in
Manhattan.
“The hospital has been consolidated
with two other Brooklyn safety net
hospitals, Brookdale and Interfaith,
into a network run by Cuomo-created
state-led entity ‘One Brooklyn Health’”,
she said.
Khari Edwards, a candidate for
Brooklyn Borough President who,
until August 2020, worked within One
Brooklyn, as vice president of external
affairs at Brookdale Hospital, addressed
the rally.
“I don’t feel that the plan, especially
the communication with the community,
and I’m saying this as somebody
from the inside, was done properly,”
he said. “I’m supporting you, because
I believe this plan can go forward in a
good way. I believe that Kingsbrook is a
necessity in this community.”
Other organizations represented
included the advocacy group Commission
on the Public’s Health System,
Black Lives Matter Brooklyn.
Keefe said the Office of the Public
Advocate Jumaane Williams tweeted
later in opposition to the closure and in
support of a moratorium on all hospital
closures.
“Safety net hospitals like Kingsbrook
MUST be fully funded, especially
in under-resourced neighborhoods,”
the tweet read.
Earlier, the Rev. Patricia Malcolm,
one of the leaders of Kingsbrook Community
Action Committee, issued a
statement, saying that the group was
planning to rally at the entrance of
Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center “to
protest the unjust planned closure of
inpatient services at this much-needed
safety-net hospital.”
Rev. Malcolm, also a member of
Churches United to Save and Heal
(CUSH), said that, during the first wave
of COVID-19 in March 2020, “people
sick with the coronavirus filled up
Kingsbrook’s 200+ inpatient beds.”
She feared that “Kingsbrook will be
absorbed by affiliated One Brooklyn
Health hospitals (Interfaith and Brookdale),
one-third will find other hospitals,
and one-third will simply disappear
from the health care system.”
Rev. Malcolm said that, for nearly
a century, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical
Center has served East Flatbush and
other communities in central Brooklyn.
Continued from cover
Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister,
Gaston Browne. Photo by George
Alleyne
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