An encouraging message and right now maybe it's the commissioner who
needs to hear it. Clearly overwhelmed with the demands on his
department, his office, and his cell phone, today, he said that
sometimes he wishes he wasn't him!
You'll hear that admission in a minute, but first, he addressed the 10
or so confirmed cases that have affected his officers in San Pedro,
Corozal, and now Dangriga. He said San Pedro - where the majority off
confirmed and suspect cases are has been receiving constant support:
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"I have been in constant dialogue with Mr. Noble on the island. I was
hoping to visit San Pedro today but I was advised not to concerning the
current circumstances out there but in the absence of me being able to go,
I remain in constant dialogue with Mr. Noble. I am also personally place a
call to every officer who have been affected and gave them the assurance
that we stand with them and whatever it is they need to be able to overcome
the virus that we are going to provide. I have instructed Mr. Noble to
ensure that each of the officers who are in quarantine, that we must give
them the 3 meals per day and we are going to pay for that, so that the
officers don't have to be worrying about where to go and get food and what
they are going to eat, so we will be able to ensure to provide food for
them. We also ensure that they get their water to time, we ensure that
whatever medication they need, that we get for them and we have also made
arrangement with Mr. Vargas from the employee assistance program to provide
counselling for them and I believe they had that first session virtually
and so, the officers I must say are in very good spirit. We opened a blog
where we place all the officers who are in isolation on that blog and I
communicate with them every day through that blog just giving them the
assurance that we are there for them. I am grateful that of the officers
who have tested positive there was only 1 that had to be hospitalize and
she eventually overcame that and is now recovering. In terms of the
officers in San Pedro, none of them have been so critically ill to the
extent that they require hospitalization, so we're grateful for that and we
hope that if any other tested positive after this, that is going to be
along that same line. I must say as a department we're wounded but we're
not down, we remain optimistic, we know there is a task ahead of us and I
am grateful that every day these heroes of the Belize Police Department,
the Belize Coast Guard, the Belize Defence Force that we are out there in
full force despite knowing the danger, doing what we have to do to ensure
that our country and people remain safe."
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