Suzanne Shep­pard

When Lor­net­ta Jan and her hus­band left Trinidad and To­ba­go for Cana­da on March 8, they planned to be back home in a month. They went to Ot­tawa to get med­ical at­ten­tion that is not avail­able here.

Now des­per­ate to get back home, Jan, who strug­gles with anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion, is ap­peal­ing to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for help

"I just want to come home. This sit­u­a­tion is tak­ing a toll on my health," Jan said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

The Ma­yaro res­i­dent has been knock­ing on many doors in her ef­fort to get home. She has even en­list­ed the help of her MP Dr Rush­ton Par­ray and, af­ter many failed at­tempts, man­aged to send an email to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry on Mon­day.

Jan said she sank deep in­to de­spair on Sat­ur­day when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced plans for a phased re­open­ing of the coun­try but said re­open­ing the bor­ders will be the fi­nal step.

"I strong­ly be­lieve that I won't sur­vive un­til Ju­ly wait­ing to come home. And then Ju­ly they might still not open the bor­ders," she said.

Jan is ap­peal­ing for a flight to be or­gan­ised by the first week in June to "bring home some of us who don't have the virus."

She added: "I can take it any­more ... my de­pres­sion is get­ting worse. I just want to come home or die. I can't sleep. I can't func­tion on a dai­ly ba­sis."

Jan said every time lo­cal au­thor­i­ties an­nounce that the bor­der is to re­main closed her anx­i­ety kicks in and hr de­pres­sion wors­ens.

She said she sought help via telemed­i­cine and was pre­scribed med­i­cine but it on­ly made her con­di­tion worse, as she be­gan hav­ing thoughts of sui­cide. She is now us­ing herbal sup­ple­ments but they pro­vide very lit­tle re­lief.

"Please send a flight to Ot­tawa to bring home cit­i­zens who are virus-free, es­pe­cial­ly me and my hus­band. We will pay for our tick­et of course. I know the bor­ders are closed. But can't an ex­cep­tion be made for us with men­tal health is­sues and who are virus-free? I just want to come home!" she said.

While Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of Jan's email seek­ing as­sis­tance, she has not heard any­thing fur­ther.