And while employers are afraid of being short staffed, the police department is already facing that dilemma. To make matters worse, a second officer died last week Wednesday from COVID-19. But he didn't die in a hospital bed like most other patients. As we told you, Police Corporal David Jimenez passed away in an ambulance in KHMH's parking lot. Today, ComPol Chester Williams said that while he is not blaming the hospital, the police officers deserve better as frontline workers.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It is indeed an unfortunate situation where the police officer began experiencing breathing problems some time around 6am. BERT were called in, they responded quickly, took the officer to the KHMH and upon arrival there, he was refused access to the KHMH where he could have received treatment. Now we're not going to say that had he received the treatment or some treatment from KHMH he would have survived but the fact of the matter is that he died outside in the ambulance and that ought not to have occurred. From what I was briefed by Mr Staine from BERT who responded is that they waited outside for over three hours and despite their continued request for the officer to go inside to receive treatment, he was denied. The BERT personnel tried the utmost best to give the officer oxygen and to keep him alive but that failed and the officer subsequently died and so I have talked with the Minister of Health and again it is something that the KHMH administration have to look into because hospital authority do have an obligation by law to ensure that they treat patients who come to them irrespective of the situation. So we need to see how better can be done not just because it's a police but anybody who goes to the hospital it is expected the hospital is going to provide them with the treatment they need with a view to see how we can survive. Police officers are frontline people. We're out there everyday doing our job, we're meeting sometimes hundreds of persons per day and we're pretty much exposed to the virus and so it is the least you can do is to ensure whenever we're infected and whenever we go to hospital to seek attention that we're given the amount of attention we deserve."
Meanwhile, other officers have been putting in extra time to ensure the safety of citizens.
