Nassau, Bahamas — Bahamas Press cries ‘DUTTY’ SHAME on the FNM government for their naked neglect and ‘vicked’ abandonment of the people residing at the All Saints Camp of St. John The Divine on Lazaretto Road.
Here’s a story you cannot find in the pages of the Tribune even though the community, where AIDS victims find refuge, sits in the heart of Charles ‘Pillsbury Doughboy’ Maynard’s Constituency.
BP visited the camp yesterday following up concerns by residents in the Golden Is. Constituency. Constituents expressed their disgust and outrage towards the “NO COMPASSION” government of Papa.
One neighbor in the area told BP, “Why would this government be so cold and deny assistance to these victims of humanity? They have abandoned these people; they have made them suffer under greater stress than they ought to be living under. Their small homes have no running water and now BEC has disconnected their light? WHAT A SHAME!”
A resident at the camp in her sadness reflected on the state of her condition and told BP, “Social Services have abandoned us and today it appears that since Fr. Glen passed we are just passing through the earth.”
Bahamas Press has learnt for almost two months now BEC ordered the disconnection of the camp’s power supply to some 54 persons who reside in the community. Some including children are finding it difficult to cope in the sweltering heat. The community has a bill of almost $74,000. The amount we are told is owed to the Corporation for years increasing every month.
“We are not asking for much, we just want a chance to survive. No one would hire us and this compounds the situation,” another resident said.
Readers would remember the quick action of the government, which mobilized to assist those of the Haitian Community in Mackey Yard area just off Fire Trail Road, following the fire. That community of squatters erected Pole #44 and connected power supply from BEC to over 200 residents. BEC has yet to tell Bahamas Press how did pole #44 got erected and how did it supply power to over 200 persons for years without paying a dime to the Corporation.
BP is appalled and is dangerously disgusted by the behaviour of BEC and the government’s agencies to the suffering at the Camp. THEY HAVE NO COMPASSION for the poor and weak.
As residents assisted aide for the Ranfurly Home for orphans; following the Papa’s cold slashing of funds, so should the country gather together and assist the weak amongst us at the Lazaretto gate.
This is an absolute shame. Absolute shame! Not one word from any of these half a$$ politicians! Where is the trust that they say they have? Where is the help and hope for the poor? Politicians are the devil!
This is the second day I’m seeing this piece on BP and not one comment from anybody. It is amazing how we are so eager to defend the government concerning this issue with BTC and other what I would call trivial matters but we have nothing to say about this in-humane and as a matter of fact almost criminal act by our government. I pray to God this story isn’t true, I’m beginning to feel like a foreigner in my own country. People wake up it’s the HIV victims today…tomorrow it can be you or me.
Thanks again BP, for bringing the real News. I wish to post a note written in response to a solicitation letter regarding the reconnection of electrity at the All Saints Hospice. Hopefully, the government will be made ashamed and soon restore their electrical supply.
Dear ______:
Thank you for including me in you note regarding the reconnection of electricity to the All Saints Camp, however, I believe that it is the duty of the Bahamas government to correct this matter.
I recall once soliciting a large donation from Mr Craig Flowers for the late Rev. Glenroy Nottage’s payment of the Camp’s light bill, however the then Minister of Works explained that it was not the government’s policy to collect money from the former Leper Colony turned Aids Hospice, although the meters were read monthly..
My present concern for your proposed fund raising approach is this:
Should you raise the $70 thousand plus dollars to reconnect the electricity bill by donations, how will the monthly charges be serviced in future? The residents are dying!
Further, who pays the power bill at the Sandilands Rehabilitation, Princess Margaret Hospital, Her Majesty’s prison, The Simpson Penn School for Boys or any of our public schools?
If you answer that the All Saints Camp is a private institution, then I say that as a Hospice for the dying, it is an essential service which any civilized society must sustain and a pressing issue which the Minister of Social Services must immediately address.
This government’s unprecedented policy of providing free electricity from pole #44 to the illegal Haitian migrant residents in Mackey Yard and their subsequent relocation to the Corner Motel after the fire, must first be justified before Bahamians will easily accept the premise that dying Aids patients are being condemned to darkness, soiled sheets and cold food, hastening their demise and depriving them of their Constitutionally enshrined right to die with dignity.
Again, thank you for including me, but I will not absolve this callous government by ignoring their collective responsibility to redress this matter.
Rather, I intend to alert the international Press to this travesty and expose the world to yet another cruel reality which Bahamians are being made to suffer.
Yes, (letter writer), since many of our people will face early avoidable deaths as a direct result of this government’s inhumane policies, the least I can do is to invite the world to be a witness to the slaughter.
God bless you.
Phillippa Lady Russell
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