00:00Minister Terence DL Singh stresses the importance of having sufficient bed
00:05capacity in the event of a surgeon cases of injury or critical incidents. As such
00:10he is admonishing persons not to place their relatives or charges in hospital
00:15so that they can participate in carnival festivities. Please desist this year from
00:22abandoning your elderly parents and grandparents and children in the
00:27hospital so you can go and play mass. We estimate every year it takes up about
00:33150 to 300 beds. Now could you imagine that you're abandoning your elderly, you
00:40abandoning your children so you could play mass. Not only does it take up
00:45beds, it costs the taxpayers money because we have to do blood work still
00:50doctors have to come, nurses have to come, meals have to come. The minister is
00:54further urging people to get immunized before the mad rush of activities
00:59reaches its peak. Influenza season when the virus is circulated in North America
01:05England Europe they come down here for carnival with people. They hop on
01:11you as a person and they ride free and they come down here in first class right.
01:16Make use of the influenza vaccines now. You have a window of opportunity until
01:24around February the 14th to be vaccinated because the vaccination takes
01:30about two weeks for the immune response. Minister Dyalsing is also calling on the
01:35population to assist with blood donations. He says the blood must be
01:40tested and cannot be used immediately and as such the earlier one donates the
01:45better for those in need. If there is a surge incident, if we need blood, the
01:51blood is there. The public sometimes feels that I take blood from me now and
01:58I could transfuse it into you within minutes. No, it doesn't work like that. We
02:02have to test that blood against a panel of six is about six or eight
02:07transmissible diseases. That takes hours, that could take a day. So whilst you in a
02:14critical state needing blood, somebody may be given blood now but that blood
02:19cannot be used until it's been tested. So to overcome that, I'm appealing to the
02:24public, try and give blood now. Also on the interview was Chief Executive
02:28Officer for the North Central Regional Health Authority, Devlin Thomas.
02:34Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
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