By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Darren Henfield said a shipment of medical supplies ordered by the Ministry of Health but blocked by US officials will arrive in the country next week.

Betty K Manager Nancy Cartwright told The Tribune on Wednesday the company was bringing in three containers of medical supplies, including personal protective equipment (PPE) kits for local healthcare workers.

The containers, the Tribune understands, also include ventilators, an essential resource for fighting COVID-19.

Ms Cartwright said after the ship left the US on Tuesday, US Coast Guard officials sent her representatives a note denying them access to the supplies because of an order President Donald Trump recently implemented.

The US president signed an order on April 3 directing his administration to stop N-95 face masks and other protective equipment from being exported to other countries. In a statement, he said his order under the Defence Production Act was to “prevent hoarding, price gouging and profiteering by preventing the harmful export of critically needed PPE.”

Asked for an update on Friday, Mr Henfield said: “I’m advised by our ambassador Sidney Collie that the matter has been cleared up. I’m assured by him that the matter has been addressed, the shipment has been released and the matter was simply a bureaucratic misunderstanding. The Betty K won’t be in Florida again until Tuesday and normally arrives in The Bahamas on Wednesday or Thursday so the shipment may reach then.”

Mr Henfield could not say if the country could expect such challenges acquiring supplies from the US during the remainder of the COVID-19 crisis.

“We’re living in serious times,” he said. “We’re not the only country that experienced a similar issue. Barbados, Canada and I think Cayman Islands and some other countries may have had similar issues. These are highly sad circumstances and times in which we live and we are doing our best to adjust to a world in which COVID-19 threatens us all.”

At a press conference on Friday, President Trump was asked about the US blocking supplies to Latin American and Caribbean countries.

He said: “We have a tremendous force out there, naval force, and we’re blocking the shipment of drugs so maybe what they’re doing is their stoping ships the they want to look…we’re not blocking, what we’re doing is we’re making sure, we don’t want drugs in our country and especially with the over 160 miles of wall, it’s getting really hard to get through the border, they use to drive right through the border like they owned it and in a certain way they did, they could drive right there, they human trafficking, all of a sudden they have a powerful wall up and they’re not driving through that wall, that wall is tough…A lot of people though what they’re trying to do is come in through the water ways, whether it’s the gulf or the ocean ways and what we’re doing is we’re being very tough and we’re being tough because of drugs and human trafficking and remember the human trafficking, it’s mostly females…we have a big naval force that’s stopping so maybe when you mention that, their ships are getting caught but we’re stopping a lot of ships and finding a lot of drugs.”