Minister for Health, Hon. Dwayne Seymour gave an update on Health Service Authority’s response to COVID-19, at the press conference on Sunday, 29 March 2020.

Minister Seymour’s full statement follows.

“As the national healthcare system of the Cayman Islands, the Health Services Authority has the primary role of ensuring the health and well-being of the nation, our preparedness and response in this global public health emergency.

Today I want to provide a brief update on the plans and activities being undertaken at the HSA in terms of their planning and preparedness, resources and capabilities to ensure sustainability of the healthcare delivery system in the event of widespread community transmission in the Cayman Islands.

The stringent measures already announced by the Premier and the Government along with the plans being implemented by the National Emergency Operations Centre have made a significant impact in our mitigation and containment efforts and placed the Cayman Islands ahead of other regions in the fight against this pandemic.

The HSA is taking action to not only keep our community safe but to provide an effective and sustained response to any significant community spread and is taking all necessary steps in order to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

1. HSA has developed a COVID-19 Action Plan which sets out a comprehensive step by step approach to ensure effective coordination of resources, response and clinical outcomes
2. Established a multi-disciplinary taskforce of clinicians (physicians, nurses, allied health professionals) from a broad range of specialties who meet daily to review and monitor global trends, relevant clinical data and guidance, develop best practices, policies and procedures and strategies for patient management and effective clinical decision making.
3. A COVID-19 hospital operations team – with representation from across the organization, including clinical, operational, finance, human resources, supply chain management, facilities which also meets daily bringing together the clinical and operational perspective to drive a coordinated response plan to ensure our operations are aligned with efficient clinical delivery. This includes representation from the Sister Islands.

Through the work of these teams we have implemented a range of robust activities which have been very effective at containing community spread. These include:

1. The Flu Hotline which has been very effective and we continue to encourage people with flu symptoms to contact the flu hotline at 1-800-534-8600 or 947-3077 or email [email protected]. Medical professions are answering your calls and will either direct you to stay home or will direct you to the Flu Clinic. It is important that persons call the hotline first before showing up at the Flu Clinic, as this is important in the event you are a suspected COVID case. Since the hotline started on March 15 the team has handled 1,434 calls, with the lowest record volume of calls yesterday at 50. The Flu Hotline also handles calls from the Sister Islands.
2. The dedicated Flu Clinic which we believe is among the significant initiatives at containment started on March 16 is now open 8:00 a.m. – 4:00- p.m. seven days per week in Grand Cayman and Monday to Friday in Cayman Brac at the Aston Rutty Centre. Since it commenced the clinic has seen 228 patients in Grand ad 19 in the Brac. With dedicated flu clinics, we have been able to control the movement and treatment of patients with flu symptoms in the appropriate clinical setting.
3. The focus has been on our testing capabilities so I want to reassure you that HSA has PCR testing kits on hand, with the 480 received yesterday, we now have 520 and are expecting more from the UK this week.
4. Doctors Hospital is also working to secure the ability to do local testing and will keep you updated once this is all in place so that will add to the islands testing capacity when that comes on stream.
5. We also want to reassure the public that HSA has sufficient quantities of the various types of PPE, however we are sourcing additional supplies in the event our numbers increase as projected from what is happening globally.
   1. Gloves – 219,000 on hand with 938,000 on order
   2. Surgical Masks – over 106,000 on hand with 83,000 on order
   3. N95 masks – over 3,500 on hand with over 300,000 on order
   4. Isolation gowns – over 2,000 on hand with 71,000 on order
   5. Face shields with and without masks – 360 on hand, 52,000 on order
   6. Goggles – 500 on hand with over 5,000 on order
6. Beyond those initial preparedness activities and as we monitor the global situation and the challenges of other countries and healthcare systems our priority is on ensuring the availability of resources and to keep healthcare workers safe as they care for the public.

Accidents like we witnessed yesterday with the young man from Bodden Town and West Bay are so tragic.  

Everything we are doing now is for your protection and survival. It is so important that we are all following the curfew regulations and shelter in place orders at this time. 

I am sending prayers up for the young men, their families and the entire community. Let’s stay home to save lives.”