Inside St Lucia: Employers kicking out staff for being COVID-19 positive

Coronavirus case in St Lucia continues to increase, and the country struggles to encounter the situation. Even though the first phase of vaccine roll-out has begun, it is a long way for ordinary citizens to avail the doses.

St Lucia has 2576 total confirmed cases of the contagious virus and 24 deaths due to the disease. Hospitals, respiratory clinics continue to be overwhelmed by the incoming of patients complaining of flu-like symptoms.

WIC NEWS interviewed a local activist Tiffeny Josephs who revealed several astonishing things about the ongoing pandemic crisis in the country. As per her statement, many employers are kicking out coronavirus patients and not taking them back even when they test negative for the virus. Ms. Josephs stated that some employers do not even let their employees discuss the disease as people are paranoid of COVID-19 in St Lucia.

She stated, the growing unemployment is resulting in mental illness, forcing people to take unprecedented actions like suicide and personal harm.

Tiffeny Josephs told WIC NEWS that the government is only helping people who had been paying national insurance taxes or people who can testify that they had been working before the pandemic.

She emphasized that students who had since graduated face the practical world with no employment.

Josephs stated that the government support money of $500 EC is not enough to run a household with kids, bills, and food. She mentioned the amount could only keep someone afloat for a week.

St Lucia is on the verge of announcing a six-month state of emergency to tackle the crisis. Prime Minister Allen Chastanet's government has displeased the public on affording coronavirus vaccine for the general public, and the country is only relying on vaccine donations from sister nations.

The current vaccine drive in the country is only capable of immunizing limited front-line workers, and there is no information on whether the general public of St Lucia ever gets the doses.

(Inside St Lucia is an exclusive series started by WIC NEWS to reveal the coronavirus crisis in the Caribbean country.)