By
Nathan ‘Jolly’ Green. May 25, 2020.

Peter
Binose, on March 28, 2016, wrote, “Argyle Airport is due to open,
here is the lowdown.”

Firstly,
he wrote about the theft of the land that Argyle International
Airport is built on, that situation has never been corrected. But he
also wrote about the inadequacies of SVG facilities if there should
be an aircraft accident or incident where people are injured.

"Some
sixty-one of the Argyle landowners have not been paid for their land,
which was compulsorily taken from them on the promise of early and
fair payment.” “Now approaching nine years later, they remain
unpaid, and the airport is due to open in a limited form in 2016 and
a full form in 2017.” “I would hope the airlines will be able to
say, "Sorry, can't consider landing at an airport where the land
was stolen from the landowners."

He
also wrote about air crash victims if there was an accident at Argyle
Airport.

"What
other reasons may the airlines have for not even considering Argyle
as a destination"?

1/
Only enough hotels to service one 400 seat aircraft every two weeks.

2/
No emergency hospital within a reasonable distance of Argyle.

3/
No specialist medical services, such as a burn unit, etc.

4/
No rescue vessels for flights in an emergency landing on water.

5/
No rescue helicopters.

As
Binose so rightly pointed out, "The hospital in Kingstown has no
real emergency facility except in the sense of a
cottage-hospital-style where a dozen emergencies can be seen daily,
and sometimes patients sit for 16 hours to get treatment. No burns
unit, scanning, and X-ray equipment, which is more out of service
than in."

What
has prompted me to write this at this time is the Gas Station fire at
Union Island.

People
were burnt during this incident. The 70-year-old owner of the station
has since died from first degree burns. A young girl is seriously
injured with second-degree burns and fighting for her life. She has
now been evacuated to Trinidad for proper medical aid and treatment.
But why could she not be adequately attended to in SVG?

Those
of us who know little about medical terms regarding burns would think
that first degree burns are more severe than second-degree burns, but
that is not so. Second-degree burns, or partial-thickness burns, are
more severe than first-degree burns. They affect the outer layer of
skin, called the epidermis, and part of the second layer of skin
called the dermis.

Second-degree
burns can be excruciatingly painful and often take many weeks to
heal. Burns that affect large areas of skin can cause severe
complications and may be prone to infection.

Peter
Binose wrote this when addressing the dangers at Argyle Airport:

"The
hospital in Kingstown has no real emergency facility except in the
sense of a cottage-hospital-style where a dozen [real] emergencies
can be seen daily, and sometimes patients sit for 16 hours to get
treatment.” “No burns unit, the scanning and X-ray equipment is
more out of service than in.” “Grossly government underfunded a
dirty stinking facility with secondary infection a threat to the life
of everyone who visits there with an open wound.” “Drugs and
dressings rarely available and families having to scour the countries
pharmacies to try and get such drugs and dressings as their loved
ones require, that is hardly a situation that would be tolerated by
an airline considering flying here.” “The hospital floods when it
rains hard and waters are known to run through the operating theatre
ceiling at other times, causing it frequently to be unusable.”
“There is only one [single-lane] highway from the airport to the
hospital, which includes passing through Kingstown, which at certain
times of the day is gridlocked.” “The highway from Argyle to
Kingstown is hazardous and has some sheer drops and no safety
barriers.” “The road will be more hazardous when the airport
opens with fuel tanker trucks carrying aviation and jet fuel to the
airport.” “Safety barriers approaching Kingstown are damaged and
lay unrepaired for the last ten years on the approach to Kingstown.”
“There is no hospital or government-owned helicopters for sea or
land rescue.” “They have only recently got four decent
ambulances, which may well take over an hour to go to Argyle and the
same or more to return to Kingstown.” “Hopefully, there will be a
purchase made before the airport opens of about eight ambulances to
be permanently located at Argyle airport.” “There are no
helicopters anywhere in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, privately
or publicly owned, even the Coast Guard are without such an
aircraft.” “There are no search and rescue vessels available in
the area, or anywhere in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines capable of
rescuing passengers from an aircraft downed in the sea, they just do
not exist.” “We cannot rely on our coast guard, remember how they
stood by while members of the public rescued school children from the
sea and crashed van at Sandy Bay."

I
am writing this so as everyone understands. Aircraft accidents quite
often end with the aircraft catching on fire; the passengers are at
risk of being burnt. But to make things worse, SVG has no hospital
with a burn unit; they would never be able to cope with a small
number of injuries, even less so if there were a lot of people
injured.

Since
Binose wrote about the fire risk at the Argyle airport, nothing has
got better. A new specialized hospital unit has been built at
Georgetown, built by Cubans after many years of delay; the Cubans
were seven years late in finishing the hospital just like they were
six years late in finishing the Argyle airport. They will not be able
to cope in any way whatsoever with an aircraft incident. They are not
even an emergency hospital; just a unit built close to an active
volcano, and so far away from the main Vincentian populace to be next
to useless. Probably a propaganda project built to give Cubans jobs
and be within the PMs Constituency reach.

I
ask you the readers and, in particular, the government of Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines. What would happen if a 400 seat aircraft
had an accident at the airport or in SVG or its waters? How would
they cope with hundreds of injuries when they cannot cope with just
two from a petrol fire at Union? Think about it: how would they
rescue them, transport them, and treat them?

How
would 400 injured people get to Kingstown, would it take days? Where
would they put the injured? Who would be capable of treating them?
Not quite so important, where they would store the dead, God forbid.

I
doubt they even have enough dressings, medicines, or personnel to
cope with twenty, let alone four hundred.

We
must not just think about COVID 19; there are many other medical
matters that have got so much worse in SVG over the years that they
may be a more significant threat.

The
FAA has recently reduced the Argyle International Airport to a
category 2 facility. So I thought it only right that they should have
a copy of this manuscript.

C/c

Lloyds
of London

The
US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

The [EU] European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)

END

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