Standing outside of Cabinet Office on Tuesday morning, National Security Minister Marvin Dames told reporters “don’t fixate on the numbers” of people on a missing list in the wake of Hurricane Dorian.
Dames was responding to questions raised after former Minister of Health Dr. Duane Sands revealed that hundreds or thousands of names were on the missing persons list handled by Social Services before it was handed over to the Royal Bahamas Police Force. After that number dropped to 33 (if you ask Assistant Commissioner Solomon Cash) or 279 (if you ask Dames).
It is surprising that Minister Dames, a supposedly intelligent person, would make such an asinine statement.
Minister Dames are you trying to tell the people of Abaco who have lost loved ones to Hurricane Dorian, that it does not matter whether there are thousands, hundreds or 33 missing?
Minister Dames tell the 18 year old man not to fixate on the numbers when every night he is forced to fixate on the horror he experienced when Dorian ripped through Abaco.
Tell him when he recalls the last memory of his mother being swept away by the waves as he lost all hope at that moment, that the numbers of the missing don’t matter.
Tell him that when he recalls his last memory of seeing her face, the flashing look of terror quickly turned into a reassuring smile from her that everything was ok, that the numbers don’t matter.
Tell that young man that every day of his life since then that the guilt he feels of not being able to save his mother doesn’t matter.
Tell the young man’s father, who is still trying to cope with the loss of his wife and at the same time struggling with the guilt that he was not on the island to save her.
Tell him when he rolls back the curtains at night and thinks of all the things he wanted to tell her, should have told her, forgot to tell her – not to fixate on the numbers. Tell him that the numbers don’t matter.
Minister Dames, PLEASE DON’T TELL THEM THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER THEIR LOVED ONE IS ON THE LIST OF THE MISSING.
How callous of you Minister Dames. The numbers matter!!!