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OUR GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED US
It is now nine days since the dump at Riverton City in Kingston has been burning; releasing an immeasurable amount of carcinogens and other toxic compounds into the air around Kingston & St.Andrew. Even if the people at the Fire Service and others working to extinguish this blaze are successful by this weekend the damage has already been done.
Thousands will have been affected after inhaling these toxins for some 10 days and unfortunately for most of them they will only realize the dangers they had been subjected to within another two to five years when the damage manifests itself (according to the health experts) through respiratory illnesses and cancerous tumors in their lungs and livers. Those with already compromised health would see the manifestations even earlier. Attempts to quantify the extent of the damage that this has caused at this time may only reveal the tip of a very large iceberg (for now) but the real cost in lives and human suffering is yet to be realized.
You see, it really does not matter who (if anyone) lit the dump Madam Prime Minister. What matters is that the agency charged with maintaining the facility, failed to do its job and in the circumstances it is not only the Executive Director that should go but the entire Board of the NSWMA. In fact by your own utterances on national TV you have demonstrated that perhaps you too should go. Your comments indicated a complete lack of understanding of magnitude of this disaster and the resultant effect on the islands' residents. Your comments equally demonstrated a lack of understanding of the role that you ought to play as the leader of a country and a people in these grave circumstances.
Maybe at some point a group of Jamaicans may find the stomach and resources to take out a "Class action" suit against the NSWMA but even that too may prove to be a waste of time as the last award made by Jamaican Court to the woman infected with HIV at a public hospital still remains unpaid after nearly eight years.
In any society it is the lives of all the people that matters; rich or poor, JLP or PNP and after watching the responses to this unfolding tragedy my conclusion is that our government has once again demonstrated the extent to which it fails our people. Even Adina Edwards could see that.
- Richard Hugh Blackford
It is now nine days since the dump at Riverton City in Kingston has been burning; releasing an immeasurable amount of carcinogens and other toxic compounds into the air around Kingston & St.Andrew. Even if the people at the Fire Service and others working to extinguish this blaze are successful by this weekend the damage has already been done.
Thousands will have been affected after inhaling these toxins for some 10 days and unfortunately for most of them they will only realize the dangers they had been subjected to within another two to five years when the damage manifests itself (according to the health experts) through respiratory illnesses and cancerous tumors in their lungs and livers. Those with already compromised health would see the manifestations even earlier. Attempts to quantify the extent of the damage that this has caused at this time may only reveal the tip of a very large iceberg (for now) but the real cost in lives and human suffering is yet to be realized.
You see, it really does not matter who (if anyone) lit the dump Madam Prime Minister. What matters is that the agency charged with maintaining the facility, failed to do its job and in the circumstances it is not only the Executive Director that should go but the entire Board of the NSWMA. In fact by your own utterances on national TV you have demonstrated that perhaps you too should go. Your comments indicated a complete lack of understanding of magnitude of this disaster and the resultant effect on the islands' residents. Your comments equally demonstrated a lack of understanding of the role that you ought to play as the leader of a country and a people in these grave circumstances.
Maybe at some point a group of Jamaicans may find the stomach and resources to take out a "Class action" suit against the NSWMA but even that too may prove to be a waste of time as the last award made by Jamaican Court to the woman infected with HIV at a public hospital still remains unpaid after nearly eight years.
In any society it is the lives of all the people that matters; rich or poor, JLP or PNP and after watching the responses to this unfolding tragedy my conclusion is that our government has once again demonstrated the extent to which it fails our people. Even Adina Edwards could see that.
- Richard Hugh Blackford
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