The
UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Clinical
care specialists and medical researchers at The University of the
West, Cave Hill Campus, are actively engaged in the fight to curb the
spread of COVID-19 in Barbados and across the region.

Some
have joined clinicians and other health care responders on the front
line offering critical care to the stricken while others are
providing analytical psychosocial and scientific research to aid
policy development, some of which have informed the policy directives
of authorities in Barbados and elsewhere.

For
example, health leaders have been able to utilise the data from
public health modeling to predict infection and mortality rates of
the global virus.

With
Cave Hill staff comprising around half of the medical personnel on
island trained in the use of ventilators, which are used worldwide in
the most acute medical conditions, the experts are also providing
critical hands-on and bed-side assistance.

Among
those giving support, five are from the George Alleyne Chronic
Disease Research Centre (GA-CDRC) and nine are from the Faculty of
Medical Sciences (FMS). They include Professor of Biostatistics Ian
Hambleton; Senior Lecturer in Qualitative Research Methods, Dr.
Madhuvanti Murphy; Senior Lecturer in Immunology, Dr, Kim Quimby;
Lecturer in Data Science Dr. Christina Howitt; and Lecturer in
Epidemiology Dr. Natasha Sobers, all of the GA-CDRC, as well as
Lecturers in Public Health at the FMS, Dr. Heather Harewood and Dr.
Natalie Greaves, have partnered on the public health modeling,
surveillance, process planning and accompanying public health
intervention recommendations. Drs. Mike Campbell and Maisha Emmanuel
are assisting with survey research on behaviour of health care
workers.

Lecturer
in Family Medicine, Dr. Euclid Morris (FMS) is a member of the
Ministry of Health and Wellness COVID-19 Health Advocate Team (CHAT)
along with Drs. Natasha Sobers, Heather Harewood, Natalie Greaves and
Madhuvanti Murphy.

On
the front line as part of the Covid-19 Response Clinical Team are:
Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology, Dr. Kenneth Connell, who is also
part of the COVID-19 CHAT; Lecturer in Internal Medicine, Dr. Arianne
Harvey; Lecturer in Internal Medicine, Dr. Colette George; and
Lecturer in Anesthesiology, Dr. Keisha Thomas-Gibson.

Also
providing front line assistance in the fight to save lives is a UWI
military reservist, who was among those called out by authorities to
undertake national duties. The Cave Hill employee is in charge of the
field medical facility that supports 95 percent of the swabs utilised
for testing of COVID-19. The member has also been asked to assist
with manning the old navy base at Harrison Point, which is being used
as an isolation facility