NASSAU, BAHAMAS – President of the Bahamas Union of Teachers, Belinda Wilson, on Friday revealed that there is a possibility that teachers at the A. F. Adderley Junior High School and the Government High School may have been exposed to tuberculosis (TB) and will be tested soon.
“They will take X Rays, and based on the results, it will be 14 days to tell if they are positive and need treatment,” Wilson said.
“If they are positive and need the 6-month treatment, I have asked Dr. Sands to identify a clinic and a specific time for our teachers to go and get treatment and not thrust them into the general population.”
When prompted about the outbreak, Minister of Education Jeffery Lloyd reassured media last week that his ministry takes any possible news of a TB outbreak within schools seriously.
“We have to be preventative and we have to proactive, we have to take prophylactic measures to ensure that circumstances such as these do not spread and create panic and challenges in our community,” Lloyd said.
“That is why whenever there is a single incident of whatever, we address it immediately, along with the department of public health.”
Wilson added that there needs to be a better effort to improve communication within the education and health ministry when dealing with circumstances such as these.
“It’s always the union having to call and say to the shop Stewart [to] say to the principal, “can you have a briefing with the staff, can you call the health team, could we make sure the suspected children are identified and given the man 2 test,’” Wilson said.
“I’m hoping that moving forward a protocol will be put in place from the Ministry’s perspective, so that whenever things of this nature happen then everyone is not running trying to figure out what to do.
