Colini DaSilva’s two children ages nine and eleven had returned from Brazil to attend school in Lethem; she is now concerned about the level of care they are receiving in the region’s quarantine facility.
“The children won’t stay locked up in the room if they have nobody there to supervise them,” the mother explained during an interview with INews.
According to the woman, those charged with overseeing the children would remain in the lower-flat of the building and allow the kids to roam freely in the upper-flat.
“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,” the mother of two claimed.
Two of those children who had returned from Brazil have since been tested positive for COVID-19.
While DaSilva’s children tested negative, they are being kept in quarantine for observation. But the woman is fearful that her children may now become positive since they are being left to mingle with others.
“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 facilities. 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.
The students had recently returned to Guyana from Brazil to write the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) and the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) exams.
However, DaSilva explained that her daughter, who will be writing the NGSA, 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.
The mother is two says she was assured by education officials that the students will be properly taken care of during institutional quarantine, but she is displeased with the level of care offered.
She explained that because they are young children, better supervision is needed.
