As the country returns to some normalcy today, following the four-day Easter weekend holiday stretch, the perennial problem of the shortage of lifeguards at our nation’s beaches needs to be urgently addressed.
This is because T&T, unfortunately, lost another citizen—18-year-old Declan Estrada—to drowning at the Penzance Beach in Rampanalgas on Saturday. More critically, however, was the fact that this beach was not covered by lifeguard protection.
In fact, there are only 90 lifeguards to cover ten beaches deemed worthy of supervision in Trinidad, a situation far from suitable for a country surrounded by water. Due to the manpower issue, there were only lifeguards on patrol at Maracas Bay, Las Cuevas Bay, Mayaro Beach, Manzanilla Beach, Salybia Bay, Toco Beach, Quinam Beach, Los Iros Beach and Vessigny Beach over the long weekend.
When one considers that there are approximately 80 beaches across T&T, one gets a better idea of the scope of the problem.
President of the lifeguard branch of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) Augustus Sylvester has complained for years about the lifeguard shortage. Ahead of this Easter weekend, Mr Sylvester had noted that the complement needed for the ten beaches they do supervise was 150 lifeguards.
Needless to say, the fact that only one life was lost may be credited to nothing but divine intervention.
Despite Mr Sylvester’s yearly complaints about the inefficiencies plaguing Lifeguard Services Division—manpower and equipment being chief among them—nothing has yet been done by National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds to address the human resource problem. Granted he has inherited the problem, Minister Hinds made promises to a Parliament Standing Finance Committee as recently as last October to address the issue, when lifeguards threatened to take industrial action to get redress.
Outside of providing resources, it is also high time that the Ministry does more to educate beachgoers about the dangers to life while visiting beaches.
Lifeguards have continually complained that beachgoers are unaware of sea conditions and the areas demarcated by flags as safe for bathing. For those still unaware, yellow flags along the shoreline indicate beachgoers can bathe in the area cautiously and that lifeguards are patrolling, while red flags mean it is unsafe and the lifeguard patrol zone ends there. Of course, sea bathers either disobeying the lifeguards or going into the water after consuming alcohol are also major contributors to dangerous situations.
Global warming is also making conditions at sea and by extension, beaches, unpredictable, making the jobs of lifeguards even more perilous.
The Easter period is one of the busiest times of the year for beach activity. Indeed, with school also out at this time, lifeguards expect the large numbers to continue until this weekend, which is to say we are not yet out of the danger period.
As such, we hope that Minister Hinds will get the necessary resources needed to rectify the lifeguards’ woes and ensure that the current beaches get what they deserve and that other beaches which attract people traffic get the necessary coverage they require, since citizens do not only venture to the more popular beaches during the holiday seasons.
