TORON­TO—An On­tario man try­ing to bury his moth­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go says he’s dev­as­tat­ed af­ter he flew to the is­land on­ly to be turned around and forced to fly home be­cause his vac­cine mix is not ap­proved in that coun­try.

Alan Pred­die says he, his wife and a few oth­er rel­a­tives trav­elled to Trinidad and To­ba­go on Thurs­day to bury his moth­er who lived and died there. Af­ter land­ing, on­ly those of them with two dos­es of the same vac­cine were able to en­ter the coun­try.

Pred­die, who had a Pfiz­er-Mod­er­na mix, said he was told he could not vis­it the coun­try un­less he stayed 14 days in a state-su­per­vised quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty that would cost him al­most $3,000—an op­tion that was im­pos­si­ble for him.

“I was placed on the next flight to Toron­to. I was so an­gry. I’m so an­gry be­cause the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment told me to take these vac­cines and it would be okay,” he said. “I trust­ed them and their sci­ence.”

“My moth­er and I were ex­treme­ly close. I would call her four times a week if not more and talk and laugh. In Trinidad, I spent most of my va­ca­tions. This is so painful for me.”

Speak­ing from his Bramp­ton home, Pred­die said he has un­til Fri­day to make it to his moth­er’s bur­ial and fu­ner­al.

Over­whelmed with anx­i­ety, he’s been des­per­ate­ly try­ing to find a way to re­turn and be there with his wife, sib­lings and 80-year-old fa­ther.

CTV News Toron­to has been search­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­istry of Health web­site and in­for­ma­tion is not clear­ly avail­able on whether vis­i­tors to the coun­try with Pfiz­er-Mod­er­na mix­es are con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

How­ev­er, the web­site for the coun­try’s Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty states that the on­ly mix vac­cine reg­i­men cur­rent­ly ap­proved is the As­traZeneca/Pfiz­er mix.

Be­fore ar­riv­ing in Trinidad, Pred­die said he was not told that his vac­cine mix was not ap­proved de­spite fly­ing with the state-owned Caribbean Air­lines and reg­is­ter­ing on the gov­ern­ment’s trav­el app.

It wasn’t un­til he ar­rived in Trinidad, he said, that he was told he could not en­ter.

CTV News Toron­to con­tact­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­istry of Health about the is­sue on Wednes­day morn­ing, but has not yet re­ceived a re­sponse.

Source: CBC