Concerned Jamaican
published: Wednesday | April 21, 2004

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I AM a Jamaican living in Florida. A fellow Jamaican went to New York and suffered a massive stroke on September 13, 2003, and is now lying in a nursing home in the Bronx. He cannot get a visit or care from his wife and the mother of his three children living in Jamaica because she has been turned down twice by the US Embassy in Jamaica, even though she presented them with letters from the doctor and hospital that her husband is in. Their concern was that the wife might not return to Jamaica.

People's lives don't matter anymore and it is all about the great United States of America.

The great US just simply needs to verify information that was given to them by the doctors. I know Jamaica is hard but they need to understand not everyone really wants to be in America.

In the same breath, whose responsibility it is in a country to assist in the matter of such urgency? I have called different offices for assistance including the Jamaican Consulate in New York, the so-called arm of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I guess my friend is not a son of a politician, or he is not what society put as a name brand, or anyone special in their eyes, but he is a child of a king. We should be our brother's keeper.

I am, etc.,

BARBARA MCKNIGHT

bmck007@bellsouth.net

PO Box 780820

Orlando, FL

Via Go-Jamaica