Dr. Joesph DeJames, above at left, with St. John Rescue’s Amy Reynolds and Bob Malacarne, spoke to senators during last week’s Town Hall Meeting.
From the need for regular bus service to St. John Rescue’s need for a contract with the Department of Justice, Senators Donald Cole and Myron Jackson listened to myriad concerns from citizens at a town hall meeting on Thursday evening, May 2, at the St. John Legislature building in Cruz Bay.
Hosted by the St. John Community Foundation in conjunction with Senator Cole’s office, the town hall meeting drew about 30 residents who each had a chance to share their concerns. In addition to Cole and Jackson, representatives from Senator Jeanette Millin-Young’s office and Senator Clarence Payne’s office also attended last week’s meeting.
“We are here to listen to you,” Cole said. “We’ll go back and ask the proper agency what we have to do to get answers for your questions and concerns.”
From a lack of teachers to lack of services, St. John is often at a disadvantage, explained retired educator Yvonne Wells, who took the podium first.
“St. John is always at a disadvantage,” said Wells. “In the police department there are times when there is only one officer on the road and one at the desk. That is not acceptable.”
“Every time a teacher retires, it seems the positions are being not deemed necessary anymore and not being filled,” Wells said. “For instance three years ago someone retired from Industrial Arts and now that doesn’t exist. That’s a big problem for our children.”
After years of talking, it’s time to open South Shore Road, Wells told the senators.
“Opening South Shore Road is crucial,” she said. “If there is a disaster and Centerline Road is blocked and we can’t get to Kings Hill Road, we have no way of getting out of Coral Bay except by boat. You should pursue what needs to be done in the government and the V.I. National Park to make that road open.”
The island also suffers from having irregular bus service, when VITRAN is running at all, Wells added.
“VITRAN only has one bus right now doing eight trips per day and there are days when there’s no public transportation on this island,” she said. “The bus currently running has no air conditioning so they’ve cut the runs down. After 1:25 p.m. there is no other bus to Coral Bay until 5:25 p.m. because drivers refuse to drive, and the union supports them, because of the excessive heat.”
“Also there is no telephone at the VITRAN St. John office since January,” Wells said. “You must call St. Thomas and get someone’s cell phone number, which should not have to happen.”
Although St. John residents pay plenty of taxes, they don’t receive government services, Wells explained.
“We need our equal share of services,” she said. “We are taxed enough, but we are lacking in government services.”
While the Family Resource Center has a representative based at Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center during working hours, the organization needs help offering its services to victims of domestic violence 24-hours a day, explained Vernon Araujo, Family Resource Center’s director of development.
“We have the island’s only counsellor at MKSCHC, but St. John is in desperate need for more resources,” said Araujo. “One issue we have is transportation. If there is a family in need of transportation immediately, we have a problem.”
“They are sometimes afraid to take the ferry and we don’t have a safe house on St. John,” he said. “We need help transporting victims to St. Thomas to our safe house there. We are offering services on St. John, but we’re still coming up short.”
St. John Rescue officials have been handling the transportation of deceased bodies on the island since 2006 and have been asking for a contract with the Department of Justice — which runs the territory’s morgues — since 2008, explained the group’s president Bob Malacarne.
“We provide the service without any cost to the territory using our own vehicles, which we pay to register and we pay to fuel,” said Malacarne. “We have been asking for a contract from DOJ since 2008 and we have heard nothing.”
When the island’s lone ambulance is in use, St. John Rescue also serves as backup to the St. John EMS, Malacarne added.
“Rescue performs a number of services including community CPR classes, extraction and repelling, and soon St. John will have its own oxygen generator,” he said. “We perform more services than St. Thomas Rescue and St. Croix Rescue, yet we receive less than a third of the funding that they get. We aren’t asking you to cut their funding, but we are running day to day with very little funding.”
“We really need more funding,” Malacarne said.
Senator Cole promised to take St. John Rescue’s concerns to the proper authorities, he explained.
“We must find a way to get you more funding,” Cole told Malacarne. “You back up the government here and we have to attack this situation.”
As MKSCHC turns 30 later this month, the health center continues to struggle with limited funding and high costs, explained Dr. Joseph DeJames, MKSCHC Director.
“We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary this year,” said DeJames. “It was built as a hospital and senior care facility, but due to the small population of the island was never really used in that capacity. The morgue is expensive to run and when things break down it’s difficult to understand who is responsible for that, DOJ or Schneider Regional Medical Center.”
MKSCHC officials are considering closing the island’s two body morgue due to the high costs and relatively low usage, DeJames explained.
“Usually there is a city morgue and the for St. Thomas/St. John District that is located at R.L. Schneider Hospital on St. Thomas,” he said. “We’ve entertained the idea of not operating the morgue on St. John all the time as far as electricity, etc. DOJ usually arrives on the barge and takes the body.”
“It’s only after hours that would be a concern to transport a body to Red Hook to transport it to the DOJ,” DeJames said. “In my mind, it should be a full DOJ responsibility.”
While MKSCHC began offering primary care services to the island’s veterans about two and a half years ago, veterans must now go to St. Thomas for all their medical needs, Alvis Christian explained.
“Veterans used to be able to go to MKSCHC for treatment but that has now been cut and we don’t know why,” Christian said. “Veterans on St. John now have to go to St. Thomas for any type of issue or medical need.”
The service was cut due to a lack of training from Office of Veteran’s Affairs officials, explained DeJames.
“The issue we faced is that Veterans Affairs uses a federal system of medical records which requires training and background checks, etc.,” said the MKSCHC director. “The problem was that not many on staff were certified to use the system and vouchers were not fully implemented. Payment from VA was difficult to get, we couldn’t get the training from VA and the volume was not huge.”
Senator Cole pledged to get answers to residents’ questions and share their concerns with government officials on St. Thomas.
“We don’t know about these issues unless you tell us,” said Cole. “We are writing down these concerns and we’ll go and find answers for you.”
