#TurksandCaicos, March 24, 2021 – Good afternoon. I have been invited to provide some personal reflections from the last year so I hope to explain what I think my long-term memories will be when, perhaps, I look back on this period in five years’ time. In other words the bigger picture.
I’ll start with what I believe will be my strongest positive
and my strongest negative memory of the last twelve months, then talk about some
of the big lessons I think I’ll remember, and end with my darkest potential
fear and greatest possible hope for the year ahead.
The strongest positive will be about our people. Everyone in the Islands ended up on the front-line during COVID and the vast majority were magnificent throughout, and continue to be so. True – a very small number – failed the integrity test I described at the very start of the pandemic, putting others at risk while they sought either profit or momentary gratification – but compared to the rest of the world these individuals were a very small percentage of our number. I’m immensely proud of the people of TCI.
Beyond
the population there are people who we have all relied on, many in front of me
today, and many of us owe you more than we will ever know, such as Desiree
Lewis (the Permanent Secretary of Health) and Denise Braithwaite (the CEO of
the Hospitals) and those in support or alongside them, who have spent the full
year working relentlessly – 15 hour days or more – often seven days a week.
I
include in this list, because I saw it close up, the last Premier whose work
ethic over the last year, and the attention to detail she paid to health,
should be recognised today as we reflect back on where we were and where we got
to. Health is after all a devolved
issue. I should say I see all the same characteristics in the new Government
who will now steward us towards the second anniversary next year. If the last
12 months was about a successful defence, the next 12 months is all about our
counter-attack and how completely we all throw ourselves into regaining the
initiative and retaking control of our future. More on this later.
When I think about the people who got us through this I include people across every profession and with any, and every, job title, in both the public and private sector, who adjusted and innovated and delivered in a way that has not only kept these Islands safe, but also kept us functioning in relative normality, compared to the rest of the region and indeed the world. You know who you are – so if you recognise in yourself the contribution you made – I can only thank you on behalf of us all.
And so to the overpowering negative. There is one thought that overshadows and that is the loss of our people to this wretched virus with – perversely-numbers of deaths now increasing, even as the vaccine is available on the Islands for those that wish it; a theme I will return to at the end.
Those lives shortened, and the sorrow it brings to those left behind, will be the abiding memory of this year. Attending a young Police Officers funeral service to mourn a further Police Officer, struck down not in the direct line of duty but through the impact of COVID, are memories that I will hold, but wish I didn’t have to.
Having lost my own father to Covid my family isn’t left untouched by this year’s events and when all other memories have gone, this is the one that will of course abide. There will be others listening who know exactly how this feels, and will also know that none of us want others memory of this period to be attached to this type of direct personal grief.
There
are of course other consequences of this year that have hit families in other
ways. For some this will have been the toughest year of their lives
economically. When tourism stops the economy here stops. The obvious lesson from this year must be
about diversification but it surely must also be about starting on the journey
of having a proper safety net in place, that can catch the most vulnerable and most
deserving, quickly, when unexpected calamity occurs.
And
on that point, another memory I will hold is the magnificent NGO’s, in these
Islands, who managed to achieve so much with so little. While we didn’t say so
at the time Mandy – my wife – spent time working alongside them, regularly packing
up food parcels – so our family had a very good and very regular insight into
just how much good, these very good people in the TCI did, on behalf of the
poorest of our Residents.
Quite
probably the longest term consequence is that, as we acknowledge a year of
COVID, we must also acknowledge a year that the schools have been closed. I’m
personally delighted they are now on a planned course to full reopening. Education
has been disrupted globally this year and what the longer term impact of that
will be, no one yet knows, but there has to be an impact and every Government
must plan for it, which I know ours is.
So
as I think about this year I will think about the children of these Islands,
what they were asked to sacrifice and how they managed, brilliantly, the
challenges that none of us would have wished to face, at their age,
particularly the disruption to friendships, fun and childhood freedoms as well
as lessons.
Looking
back, I will recall we started the pandemic without the means to fight it. We had
little high dependency care capability, we had no Intensive Care Unit. We had
little PPE. We had no testing capacity on the Islands. We had no closed
ventilators. We had modern hospitals, but with very limited bed capacity, and
those risked being overwhelmed extremely quickly. We had insufficient staff in
our hospital. We had, and we continue to have, a health system built on
treatment of our most serious cases outside our shores and when we were most in
need, the region was closing down to us.
All this, underpinned by a National Health Insurance Program that going
forward cannot sustain, over the long term, the sort of costs that the pandemic
has imposed but also modern medicine will bring.
The
extremely tough and well observed lockdown – the use of emergency powers – the
closure of the international borders and the stopping of our economy – not
least because the rest of the world stopped travelling – saved us from the
first wave of the pandemic and gave us just enough breathing space to build up
capacity to give ourselves a fighting chance, although that capacity has
recently been sorely tested.
So,
in the future, I will reflect that at the end of the first year we were in an
immeasurably better place than when this pandemic started. The extraordinary amount of hard work and
grind by so many people who made that possible is a memory I will also hold of
this year, for some time.
Another
positive memory I will hold is the role the UK played. They stepped up. Facing a crisis alone is not a place you want
to be – particularly when you were as ill-prepared as we were, and while it’s
probably more appropriate for others to talk of the UK’s practical,
comprehensive and rapid delivery of the stores, equipment and expertise we
needed, I will personally remember a group of UK colleagues, here and in
London, who fought for TCI as if their very lives depended on it.
If
I believe we made the right decision locking the country down quickly, another
memory will be the belief that the elected Government took a brave decision –
and I use that word in its most positive sense – to open our international
borders in July, and then keep them open. I pay tribute to the then Government
for having the courage to do this, and then hold that position. That decision
has positioned us in the region as, presently, the standout tourism
destination.
What
we and the industry have learned over the last eight months, while others have
stayed shut or oscillated in their position, is how to deliver a safe tourism
experience and our top end visitors know it, admire it, and will remember it as
will the wider industry.
We
also now have the data – because of testing prior to departure of our visitors
– to tell us that not only are tourists not bringing the virus with them
(because of our pre-testing model) they are also staying extremely safe while
here – and I attribute much of that to the protocols the hotels and villas are
observing, but also the excellent take up of vaccine we have seen in their
front-line staff. Our main industry has
done an excellent job.
There
is a good dictum that you should never let a good crisis go to waste and beyond
burnishing our tourism reputation I believe in the future we will look back on
this period and see it as the moment that a consensus emerged amongst
politicians, senior officials and across the medical profession, that
Healthcare on the Islands requires a root and branch review. I know the Premier has this in his sights.
The
pandemic put Heath under just the right amount of strain that it hasn’t (yet anyway)
been broken but it has given us a forensic insight into its weaknesses. Our hospitals need greater capacity and
capability. Our partnerships across public and private medicine have to be
strengthened. The affordability of our treatment abroad programme has to be
examined. Our past lack of investment in public health and mental health
provision needs to be questioned.
And
the good news is that necessity, being the mother of invention, means progress
is already underway. Our overall health system and the relationships between medical
practitioners and officials are immeasurably stronger in March 2021 than they
were in March 2020; that is a welcome foundation on which to build. While there
is ongoing and complex arbitration between the Government and the Hospital, the
working relationships between the CEO and the PS are outstanding. Public Health
England, who have been magnificent partners to us throughout this year, stand
ready to help if and when that help is needed but there is a huge amount of
experience and local knowledge now accumulating that can be released when
required.
But
now we turn to the most important points I wish to make, my greatest fear and
greatest hope, because these look to the 2021 rather than reflecting on 2020.
We cannot change the past but we can all influence the future and what I’m
about to say places exactly the same amount of power, to influence that future,
in each and every residents hands. It is the great equaliser of this year. Rich
or poor, old or young, whatever your ethnicity, you, the population, not the
Government, through your own personal decisions will decide whether 2021 is an
opportunity seized or an opportunity squandered.
I
believe the end of this first year does start to mark a hinge moment, a moment
when we have to start to look towards individual responsibility for our protection
rather than government imposed restrictions to govern our collective behaviours
around our personal health. The later got us through the last year but the
former will not only get us through 2021, but reignite our economy and return
our personal liberties.
What
all of us here in this hospital know, but what we need the whole Territory to
understand, is that the COVID virus is not going to give up and go away. Quite
the opposite, it is mutating, it is getting stronger, it is becoming more
deadly, it is being transmitted at a faster rate. We don’t need epidemiologists
or the World Health Organisation to tell us this, we can see it with our own
eyes here in TCI. People are getting sicker, faster and getting sicker with
more deadly results. If we include residents we have sent overseas for
treatment in just the last 7 days, four from TCI have died. All of these deaths
occurred after the vaccine was available – which would have prevented their death.
I
confidently predict more deaths, there is no reason to think any other way. The
restrictive measures we have in place clearly are reducing contagion, but not
eliminating it, and those catching the virus are becoming more likely to die. Sat
behind this, the Hospital has on several occasions’ risked being overwhelmed. The
Government could of course return us – on a regular cycle – to a lockdown and
stop the Islands economy, or keep ramping up and down restrictions, forever, but
why should we now need to do that? There is no action Government can now take –
in terms of restricting your behaviours or closing down parts of the economy that
offers the protection that an individual can now take, themselves, by taking
the vaccine.
I
promised to be straight and clear in my inauguration speech. The issue for me,
as Governor, is that rather than the uptake of the vaccine increasing week-on-week,
as more and more evidence accumulates that this is the life-saving
remedy, the uptake of the vaccine is starting to flatten off. We had an extraordinary roll out –
efficiently delivered and administered – but momentum is seemingly cooling.
This
coincides with news that the Pfizer vaccine may well become in short supply in
the UK and while the UK will send us as much vaccine as the TCI population can
use – in terms of full transparency – we cannot in all conscious ask for more
to be sent if the clinicians and medical officials on the Islands are uncertain
if future deliveries will be used before their expiry date. We cannot have vaccines being thrown away here
when there are those in the UK who want the vaccine but have yet to receive it.
Having
attended a forum with Premiers and Ministers from across the Caribbean last
week, where a cry from the independent Caribbean was for easy access to
vaccines as they look enviously on at us, the one memory I do not want to hold
from this anniversary is that this month marks the moment the vaccine program to
TCI started to falter because the demand for it was not there.
For
TCI to miss this opportunity, the opportunity to prevent loss of life, the opportunity
to prevent our hospitals being overwhelmed, for us to choose to rely on curfews
and restrictions and masks – indefinitely – when the door to normality has been
opened and the route clearly signposted would, along with the deaths already mentioned,
be the darkest of memories for me – a once in a century opportunity offered and
then missed.
So
on this anniversary what we must do in Team Health and Government is redouble
our collective efforts at public education, answer the publics concerns
respectfully and diligently, continue to deliver the vaccine – as we all have –
efficiently and safely to all those who want it. As of 21 March – 12,935 persons have been
vaccinated, without any incident, which is 34% of our population. That’s a good
start, but only a start.
So
we must also explain to those who have yet to be vaccinated that at some future
point the program – as constructed – will be closed, the supply will have
halted, and the country will have to move on – indeed the world will have to
move on – with some – hopefully most of the population safe – and some of it at
risk – and at risk through personal choice.
I
use this opportunity again to say, when you take the vaccine you are taking it
for yourself, your family, all those you come into contact with, for their
health, for their future prosperity and for their future liberty. You are doing
it – literally – for your country and your TCI brothers and sisters.
In
strong contrast the memory I want to hold – the memory I believe I will hold – is
that together we all created the safest destination and home in the Caribbean
for ourselves and our visitors alike, and that our reputation for this secured
us an unbelievably positive future for these Turks and Caicos Islands as a
world and regional leader.
This
future is ours to have if we have the collective courage to seize it. Please (please) register for the vaccine and
more than that encourage those you care about to do so to. This is a moment for
all of us to be leaders and recognise that the power of one, the power of
individual decision making, has the power to change these Islands future.
And
with that, may God Bless these Turks and Caicos Islands.
Turks & Caicos’ rising star continues to blaze trails on the global stage
Providenciales, TCI – Turks & Caicos native Selena Grant, 24, is making headlines once again—this time as the cover star for the April 2025 issue of Vigor Magazine, an international publication celebrated for spotlighting fashion, culture, and emerging talent from around the world.
Grant, who first captured national attention in May 2024 when she was crowned Miss One Nation TCI, has since built a reputation as one of the country’s most multifaceted young women. In the past year alone, she has claimed 1st Runner-Up titles in both the Miss Universe Turks & Caicos pageant and the international Miss Global International competition. Her success on the runway, however, is only part of her story.
A dedicated community activist, Selena has contributed to humanitarian causes across the Islands, working with organizations such as United Way and Edward C Garland Yoith Centre and other outreach efforts. She also lends her skills to the medical field, currently serving as a lab apprentice at InterHealth Canada Turks and Caicos Islands.
Now, as the face of Turks & Caicos Fashion Week 2025, Selena is once again flying the national flag high. But this cover moment is not hers alone—it’s a shared triumph with the renowned model , runway coach, designer and photographer Kaye Cox, who not only photographed but also styled, directed, and retouched the entire shoot.
“I was incredibly honored to work with Kaye on this project,” Selena shared. “She’s a creative powerhouse and visionary. From concept to execution, every detail was hers—and I’m just so proud we could bring this vision to life together.”
Shot on the iconic shores of Providenciales, the editorial captures the essence of island elegance with a bold, high-fashion twist. The visuals, rich with cultural pride and artistic depth, immediately caught the eye of Vigor editors and landed both women their well-deserved spot on the cover.
This feature is another major milestone in Selena’s journey and a celebration of the brilliant women behind the lens and in front of it.
This marks yet another milestone in Selena’s modeling career and underscores her continued role as a cultural ambassador for the Turks & Caicos Islands.
From the stage to the studio, from the lab to the pages of an international magazine, Selena Grant continues to prove that beauty, brains, and purpose can go hand in hand—with women like Kaye Cox right there capturing it all.
The Bahamas, April 25, 2025 – Bahamian archivist and international chess legend Antoinette Seymour has undertaken the significant endeavor of archiving the rich cultural history of the Bahamas’ major islands. In her recent publication, “Been to Cat Island”, the first title in the “Been to Bahamas” series published by Inspire Publishing (Bahamas) 2024, Seymour passionately explores this vital task.
For many, the prospect of documenting the complexities of island history could seem daunting. However, Ms. Seymour, inspired by the strategic teachings of her late father, renowned chess master Warren Seymour, embraces the challenge. “Archivists preserve and safeguard culture, history, heritage, identity, legacy, and memory,” she asserts, referencing a 1996 UNESCO publication that states, “The loss of archives is as serious as the loss of memory in a human being.”
“Throughout my life, I have heard fascinating stories about Cat Island and from Cat Islanders—stories that deserve safeguarding,” Ms. Seymour emphasizes. “If these narratives are not preserved, they will tragically vanish.”
In “Been to Cat Island,” readers can explore the unique identity of Cat Island through Seymour’s passionate lens. Discover the origins of icons like Sir Sidney Poitier, encounter delightful anecdotes such as pigs feasting on lobster, and revel in the island’s rolling hills, pristine beaches, and vibrant heritage. This book is not merely a historical account; it is an intimate portrayal of resilience, culture, and connection.
While holding a critical archival position at her alma mater, the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, Ms. Seymour remains devoted to her Bahamian roots. She aims to ensure that current and future generations of Bahamians cherish our nation’s rich history. When not archiving, Ms. Seymour travels throughout the island and shares her expertise in chess with children across The Bahamas. She is a proud mother of two and a grandmother of one.
“Been to Cat Island” is available now at Chapter One bookstore, Logos Bookstore, Cia Monet, select museums in The Bahamas and bookstores in Canada, and on Amazon.com in both paperback and eBook formats.
Guyana, April 25, 2025 – As the nation mourns the heartbreaking death of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has expressed condolences to her family on behalf of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and called for full transparency in the ongoing probe.
During a press conference on Thursday, the Vice President described it as a “sad day for Guyana.”
He also made it clear that anyone within the Guyana Police Force (GPF) found to be involved in covering up the circumstances surrounding the child’s death will face severe consequences.
Dr. Jagdeo’s remarks come amid growing public outrage and scrutiny of the police’s handling of the case. He pointed to several troubling inconsistencies in the GPF’s initial report.
According to that report, Adrianna was at the swimming pool of the Double Day Hotel in Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, with her grandmother and siblings when she reportedly disappeared around 13:00-14:00 hours. The police initially claimed that the hotel’s CCTV system was non-functional; however, footage from external sources reportedly captured Adrianna entering a red and black Toyota Raum, bearing registration number PSS 4684, which was later seen heading east toward Vreed-en-Hoop.
“If they have that footage (the police) and they put it in the statement…they should immediately release that footage,” Dr Jagdeo said.
“Something is wrong, and we have to get to the bottom of it. We are not going to rest until that happens. And whoever is culpable, whoever, if there is a coverup, people will face consequences; we are not going to tolerate this. This young girl should never have lost her life.”
Just 24 hours after issuing the initial report, the GPF acknowledged discrepancies in the information released and has since launched an internal review.
Dr Jagdeo also spoke of the emotional toll the incident has taken on Adrianna’s family, stating, “I saw a video of the father speaking and how distraught he was. The family deserves answers, and the people of this country need answers.”
The discovery of Adrianna’s body in the hotel pool after hours of desperate searching has plunged the nation into deep mourning. Frustration over handling the case has sparked protests, with citizens demanding justice and accountability.
President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali has since ordered the GPF to establish a special investigative team to uncover the full circumstances surrounding the child’s death.
“We must uncover the full truth of everything that transpired, and no resource or effort will be spared,” the President said via his official social media account.
President Ali also spoke directly with Adrianna’s mother, pledging the government’s full support in pursuing justice. President Ali has further instructed the GPF to compile a comprehensive report detailing all actions since the investigation began.
To support this, the government has ordered an independent autopsy and Barbadian forensic pathologist Dr. Shubhakar Karra Paul is expected to arrive in Guyana at 5:30 p.m. today to conduct the post-mortem examination.
VP Jagdeo also offered his condolences on behalf of the PPP to the families of Maline LaCruz, who was killed by her husband, along with her mother, Waveny LaCruz and sister, Sueann LaCruz. Maline’s younger brother, Ceon LaCruz, was also injured in the shooting and is in critical condition.
He said the government is committed to uncovering the details behind the shooting, particularly the legality of the gun used to kill the three women.
“Because if he had a legal firearm, after the assault, he was supposed to lodge the firearm … we will look at this matter,” he assured.