分类： society

Nassau, Bahamas – Months of collective bargaining between the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) and the national government have broken down into open confrontation, after the administration reintroduced a salary package union leaders already rejected earlier in negotiations. BUT President Belinda Wilson made the impasse public during an orientation event this week for over 100 newly hired educators across the country, outlining the union’s core demands and criticizing the government’s negotiating posture as bad-faith.

For a Bahamian family building a life in Jacksonville, Florida, what began as a routine health scare has spiraled into a crisis that threatens their home, their stability and their future. Terrel Carey, a 37-year-old father of five and former photojournalist, now faces an overwhelming combination of end-stage kidney disease, advanced diabetes and permanent severe vision loss—conditions that have robbed him of his ability to work and pushed his family to seek public support to avoid losing their home.

Before his health declined, Carey worked as a professional photographer and videographer, creating visual content and covering events to support his growing household. For years, he and his wife Waydelle were both working breadwinners, able to cover their expenses and care for their five children: a 15-year-old from Carey’s previous relationship, an 8-year-old son, a 5-year-old daughter, and 2-year-old twin girls. That two-income stability collapsed as Carey’s health worsened, leaving the family dependent on a single income at the worst possible moment.

Carey’s health crisis first emerged in summer 2024, when persistent severe headaches sent him to the hospital. Doctors quickly diagnosed uncontrolled hypertension and clear signs of progressive kidney failure, admitting him for several days after abnormal test results raised urgent red flags. A follow-up biopsy confirmed end-stage kidney disease, with clinicians projecting his kidneys would fail completely by December 2024. The situation escalated to a life-threatening emergency when excess fluid built up in Carey’s body, leaving him constantly exhausted, short of breath, and with persistent chest pressure.

The devastating diagnosis came at a moment Carey never could have predicted: he was on assignment photographing a wedding in Tallahassee when his primary care provider called with his lab results, urging him to seek emergency care immediately. “The doctor told me I was at risk of dying if I didn’t get to a hospital right away,” Carey recalled.

After returning to Jacksonville, Carey began urgent dialysis treatment via a catheter placed near his neck, before undergoing surgery to create a vascular fistula in his left arm for ongoing hemodialysis. He later transitioned to peritoneal dialysis, which allows him to complete treatment sessions at home rather than at a clinical facility. Unlike in-center hemodialysis, which left Carey completely drained after every session, struggling with slurred speech and difficulty walking, home-based treatment is far less physically taxing. “When you finish in-center treatment, you feel completely wiped out,” he explained. “All I could manage after getting home was eat something small, then go straight to sleep.”

For Carey, the cruelest blow of his illness has not been the repeated dialysis sessions or the constant physical discomfort—it is the permanent vision loss that has stripped him of his independence and his ability to earn a living. Today, his right eye is completely blind, while his left eye only allows him to distinguish basic light and shadow. He compares his remaining vision to trying to see through a sheet of wet wax paper. He initially tried to document his health journey online, posting videos of his dialysis sessions, medical appointments and transplant evaluations to generate much-needed income, but further deterioration of his left eye’s vision forced him to abandon the project.

As medical bills pile up and a broken rent repayment plan has put the family at imminent risk of eviction, the Careys have launched a public GoFundMe campaign to cover gaps in their insurance coverage and basic household costs. A previous rent repayment plan requiring monthly payments of over $2,000 fell through recently, leaving the family facing possible displacement from their rented home. Out-of-pocket costs for care not covered by insurance add up quickly: appointments with low-vision specialists alone cost between $200 and $300 per visit, and Carey needs ongoing care to learn to navigate with a white cane and adjust to life with severe vision impairment.

Asking for public help has not been easy for Carey, who spent his entire adult life providing for his family independently. While relatives have stepped up to offer what support they can, many have limited resources of their own, and assistance from friends has been inconsistent. The strain has touched every member of the extended family, and Waydelle Carey said the family has put aside pride to ask for help. “Pride aside, we need help,” she shared in a public Facebook post. “I’m putting myself out here in this vulnerable position just to ask for some support, some help to get us through this.”

Even amid nightly dialysis treatments and declining health, Carey still stays active in caring for his young twin daughters, and his children have become a critical source of emotional support. During family outings, his 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter often step in to guide him, holding his hand when he needs help turning or navigating new spaces. “They remind me that they love me, that I’m a good dad,” Carey said. “That encouragement is what keeps me going some days.”

Still, the emotional weight of losing his independence, his livelihood and his vision has taken a severe toll. Carey has struggled with depression and even suicidal thoughts, recalling many mornings where he would cry before dialysis, overwhelmed by the physical and emotional burden of his condition. “It gets heavy sometimes,” he acknowledged. Therapy has helped him manage his depression, and transitioning to home dialysis has reduced some of his daily stress, but he says the emotional impact of chronic kidney disease is often long-lasting.

“A lot of people think depression only hits right after you get the diagnosis,” he explained. “But this is a life change. The first period is the hardest, but many people live with this depression for years, even decades, while dealing with kidney disease. Treatment keeps you alive, but it doesn’t fix the disease.”

Carey is currently undergoing evaluation for a combined kidney and pancreas transplant, a procedure that could address both his end-stage kidney disease and his diabetes. He holds out cautious hope that the transplant could also improve the remaining vision in his left eye, even as he acknowledges that his blindness may be permanent. “At the end of the day, I just want to be able to live a long life and still enjoy time with my kids,” he said. “I know my vision might not come back, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hope that it can.”

Four weeks have passed since the devastating July 10 plane crash near San Andros Airport that claimed 10 lives, including Giovanni “Geo” McKenzie – the only son of Apostle Dr. Jan Jones. Today, the heartbroken mother continues to be swallowed by overwhelming waves of grief, saying she is adrift in a fog of sorrow that she cannot navigate on her own. “We pray, but this is not easy,” Dr. Jones shared in a recent interview. “We may start laughing and talking like everything is normal, but the pain is always there, cutting through any moment of lightness.”

The family alternates between small moments of calm and days crippled by sadness, clinging to their faith to carry them through, even as unanswered questions about the crash continue to hang over them. Dr. Jones revealed that McKenzie’s youngest sister – a teenager he helped raise – constantly asks why her brother had to die that way. The young girl also struggles to accept that he will not be there to walk across the stage with her at her high school graduation next year.

For Dr. Jones, the void left by her son’s death is a permanent, aching absence. “If you let this grief consume you, you could literally lose your mind,” she explained. “Some days I don’t eat. Some nights I can’t sleep. I’m just… gone. I don’t know how to explain it – I’m in a place where even I don’t know where I am right now.”

Dr. Jones described her bond with McKenzie as unbreakable. Her three daughters often teased that McKenzie was her favorite child, and while the mother of four says she loves all her children equally, she acknowledged McKenzie held a unique place in her heart. The two shared endless common ground, and countless first experiences together. “We talked about everything,” she said. “Even though his father was in his life, he always came to me with everything. I taught him how to drive. I bought him his very first musical instruments.”

The way Dr. Jones learned of her son’s death only added more trauma to the tragedy. She first saw the news on social media, as friends messaged her telling her to check Facebook for updates on the crash, rather than receiving an official notification from government or airline authorities. “It was wrong,” she said of the experience. “We should have gotten a call from officials first, not finding out that your only son is dead from a random Facebook post and people messaging you about it.”

When the news hit, she said the pain felt identical to the labor contractions she experienced when giving birth to McKenzie. “I couldn’t even cry at first,” she recalled. “All I could do was speak in tongues – that was the only language my body and soul knew in that moment. I just asked God what His answer was to all this pain. I just needed to hear something from Him in the middle of that horror.”

Now, as the family prepares to lay McKenzie to rest this weekend, her symptoms of grief have only intensified, with many sleepless nights and lost meals. At 35 years old, McKenzie was a talented keyboardist and beloved bandleader with big dreams for his future. In one of their final conversations before he boarded the doomed Flamingo Air flight, he shared his ambitious plans for the year, all centered on his lifelong passion for music. He had recently purchased new instruments, was developing his music project Da Pond with dreams of touring internationally, and hoped to open a music school alongside launching several other small businesses.

“Wherever music was, that’s where you’d find him,” Dr. Jones said of her son. “He was always so ambitious, he always believed he would make it to the top – that’s how I raised all my children, it comes from the work I do too.”

The crash has also left a deep gap in McKenzie’s church family at Revolution Church, where he worshipped regularly and played keyboard for services. Congregation members remember him as a warm, kind person fully devoted to his faith. Dr. Jones remembers her son as a visionary and a builder of people, someone who dedicated himself to bringing out the best in everyone around him.

To this day, Dr. Jones says she still has many lingering questions about the crash that killed her son – some she is not ready to share publicly. So far, representatives from Flamingo Air have not reached out to meet with the families of the victims, but Dr. Jones says she holds onto hope that she will get the answers she seeks eventually. “The only thing I need to do right now is lay my son to rest, give him peace,” she said. “Anything else I have to handle can wait until after that.”

For residents of Little Grand Cay, a small Bahamian island, the long wait for restored electricity has grown even longer. Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) recently announced that repairs to a rented replacement generator have been pushed back to August 21, marking the latest setback in a weeks-long crisis that has upended daily life for the island’s community.

According to BPL’s official update, the third-party rental generation firm notified the utility that mechanical fixes would take longer than initially projected. Once repairs are completed at the Grand Bahama facility, the generator will immediately be shipped to Little Grand Cay to resolve the outage. In a statement, BPL issued a formal apology to customers for the extended disruption and expressed gratitude for their ongoing patience amid the challenging circumstances.

This newest delay delivers a fresh blow to residents who have navigated harsh living conditions since the full island outage began on August 5, triggered by the failure of the island’s primary generator. Even before the total blackout, the community had struggled with chronic, frequent rolling blackouts that disrupted normal activity. Since the full outage, Little Grand Cay has been left without not just electricity, but also working phone service and running water, leaving residents dependent on small, portable personal generators to meet basic power needs.

The cost of running these portable units has strained household budgets significantly. Multiple residents report spending between $90 and $100 daily on fuel to keep their generators operating, with one local resident putting their total cumulative fuel costs at nearly $1,000 already through the outage. As these expenses mount, many residents are now pushing for formal reimbursement or bill credits from BPL to offset the unexpected costs they have been forced to pay.

Kirk Cornish, the Member of Parliament for North Abaco, which includes Little Grand Cay, clarified the government’s ongoing efforts to resolve the crisis. He explained that the national government had already deployed two new generators to the island, but both units developed unexpected mechanical defects that forced them out of service. A third generator sourced from Walker’s Cay also suffered operational issues, leading officials to arrange for the current repaired rental unit from Grand Bahama.

“ No effort has been spared. We are trying to address the issue as best as we can, ” Cornish said, adding that he keeps constituents updated on developments through a dedicated WhatsApp community group. “ I sent a voice note that I’m fully aware and we are fully working on it and we continue to face the challenges. ”

Cornish pointed to the government’s ongoing investment in the island’s power infrastructure as proof of its commitment, noting that at least four or five new generators have been deployed to Little Grand Cay over the past five years alone. He also highlighted a recent policy move to address a long-standing financial grievance for the community: a more than $500,000 accumulated utility arrears that stemmed from a decision by the previous administration to instruct residents to use utility services without paying their bills. The current government has fully forgiven that outstanding debt, a move Cornish framed as a correction of an unfair policy.

When asked about residents’ calls for fuel cost reimbursement, Cornish acknowledged that residents have every right to make the request, but noted that the decision falls outside of his direct control. BPL has confirmed that it will issue new public updates as more information becomes available on the generator repairs and shipping timeline.

The repeated delays have deepened long-running concerns among Little Grand Cay residents about the overall reliability and sustainability of the island’s power infrastructure, with many calling for more permanent solutions to prevent future extended outages from disrupting daily life.