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ROUGH
ROYAL
RIDE
Prince William, Kate face
protests on CARICOM tour
Vol. 33, Issue 13 Queens/long Island/Bronx/Manhattan Mar. 31-Apr. 6, 2022
By Bert Wilkinson
The 2022 tour to the Caribbean by
Britain’s Prince William and Catherine,
Duchess of Cambridge will likely
be one that they may never forget
as their mere presence in the bloc
has not only reignited chatter about
dumping the queen and member
nations switching to republics but
it has also breathed new life into the
seemingly moribund regional reparations
movement.
Just over two days after the delegation
left The Bahamas for home
on the final leg of a three-nation
tour that had also included Belize
and Jamaica, Trinidadian Prime
Minister Keith Rowley this week
jumped face first into the reparations
fight by demanding Britain
and its European allies be prepared
to compensate the region and its
occupants for the horrors of the
transatlantic slave trade.
At all three stops during the
eight-day tour that was billed as a
British so-called “charm offensive,”
William and his delegation had been
frankly reminded about Britain’s
role in the trade, its effects on relative
underdevelopment in the region
and the role in played in developing
the economies of Europe on the
backs of free African labor. Following
the royal tour and its media
reportage, Rowley yielded to temptation
and jumped into the issue with
gusto. International media reports
now seem to indicate the attitude of
the region to a royal visit this time
could well be termed as a mistake
Sen. Zellnor Myrie addresses ‘Save Downstate Rally.’ Office of Sen. Zellnor Myrie
Myrie rallies to save Downstate Hospital
By Nelson A. King
Joined by a coalition of healthcare
workers and labor and community
leaders, Sen. Zellnor Y.
Myrie (D-Central Brooklyn) last
Friday called for US$159 million
in emergency funding desperately
needed to stabilize SUNY
Downstate Medical Center and
University Hospital of Brooklyn.
Myrie, whose grandmother
hailed from Jamaica, said the
hospital, New York City’s flagship
state-run healthcare institution,
faces a significant funding
shortfall after being designated
a “COVID-only facility” by then-
Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2020.
“Simply put, Downstate helped
me — and this community —
make it through the pandemic
alive,” said Myrie, who was briefly
hospitalized there in 2021 after
contracting the virus. “This institution
answered the call of duty,
providing its patients the highest
level of care when pressed into
service as Brooklyn’s only all-
COVID hospital.
“It’s unconscionable we would
allow Downstate to face these
staggering losses without support
from the state,” he added.
On March 28, 2020, Myrie said
Cuomo designated SUNY Downstate
as Brooklyn’s sole COVIDonly
hospital.
Myrie said this required the
hospital to divert all non-COVID
inpatient cases to other facilities,
cancel all elective and emergent
surgeries, close all clinics, and
divert all obstetric patients to
other hospitals.
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