Jamaican Nurse Highlighted At White House COVID-19 Summit

By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Sept. 23, 2021: The work of a Jamaican nurse in the pandemic in Jamaica was on Wednesday highlighted by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken at the White House’s Virtual COVID-19 Summit.

Registered General Nurse Sister, Antonia Richards Stewart, was highlighted by Blinken at the event.

Stewart, according to Blinken, was given “additional training and equipment” from USAID, which “helped Antonia and her colleagues at the Kingston Public Hospital save lives there as well.”

Brown said that of everything she learned during the pandemic, the most important lesson in many ways has been the most basic.

“What is critical to winning the fight against COVID-19 is us, the people,” she was quoted as saying.

Brown is a registered general nurse (RN) and certified nephrology nurse at Kingston Public Hospital and the mother of three-year-old Davina and one-year-old Dejanae.

Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, said COVID-19 has wrecked the economies of the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping.

Browne, who is also the chairman of the 15-member grouping, told the virtual Global Covid-19 Summit that in in some Caribbean countries, more than 20 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been lost; unemployment has risen; poverty has expanded and demands on the state have multiplied, even as revenues have declined steeply.

The Summit was held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, (UNGA).