National Energy Skills Centre (NESC) chairman Feroze Khan confirmed yesterday that they had, on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer (of Health), postponed the arrival of a batch of trainees from Nigeria last month. He said: “The batch is about 100 students who were coming for training in welding pipe fabrication and similar skills at NESC’s drilling academy.
“But as a result of the existing threat, the CMO of Health advised we delay their arrival until T&T better understands the risk and we’ve complied. “We are not yet in position to say when they will be coming but we will be guided by the CMO’s advice. At this stage any visitor coming into the NESC, we will also have to seek the CMO’s advice on appropriate action.”
Health Minister Fuad Khan also says he has to hold talks on the Ebola issue with Living Water, the local representative for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) which takes in people seeking asylum or refugee status assistance. Several months ago, Khan noted its role in that. It was reported in January that Living Water had 100 people seeking asylum in T&T, mainly from African countries, and had helped 1,200 in its work overall.
Khan said: “We will have to hold talks with Living Water so they can let us know who is coming in and we will have to do assessments to ensure all protocols on this issue are followed.” Yesterday, Living Water’s Rosemary Scott said it had been doing such work for 20 years, estimating it had assisted about 500 people between the 1990s and currently.
Scott said in recent years it had received an influx of people from Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana and other locations. But she said it had not received people from that region in a year. She said when the Ebola issue arose, it contacted health authorities on the issue and were told to refer suspected cases to hospitals. Living Water does not house refugees but interviews cases for processing.
In a media report earlier this year, Scott is quoted as saying most recent applicants were from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.