Hello dear Term-5 SGU friends,

Please kindly share your ideas/comments about the COVID situation in Grenada in the comment section of the petition if you think that would be helpful.

Here is the last email that has been sent to the school administrators:

 

Dear SGU Administrators,

We hope all is going fine with you and you're safe from several new COVID cases among the students on campus. It seems the COVID-free situation in Grenada was because of the limited travel there. The Grenada COVID-19 epidemic is just going to start again when the other parts of the world have gone through the pandemic.

We are your students, and we just ask you to hear our voices. 

Is that professional just saying your issues are understandable but discontinue sending emails to us?! No care about the number of signatures when more than ¼ of the students have critical problems. 

We all knew our prestigious university was not an online school. Meanwhile, living on a beautiful Caribbean Island like Grenada was one of the reasons that we all decided to start our journey at SGU medical school. Still, unfortunately, the pandemic didn't allow us to have such a fantastic experience.

We know you are too busy to read the families' concerns. So, we decided to forward one of the parent's comments to you as an example. Because he asked you to clarify the school plan to protect other students coming to the island. How do you guarantee the students' and their kids' health? Here is one of the parents' comments on the term-5 students' petition website. 

"Recently, many SGU students got COVID on campus. N-95 masks are still not available properly in Grenada. They still have limited resources like PPEs, ICU beds, ventilators, and so forth. It's the school administrators' responsibility to prepare a safe physical and mental environment for all their students. When they can't take care of the students who are already on the island, how can they disregard students' requests for online options for the term-5 students? It is the direct responsibility of all the school administrators if any health problems occur for them after these mandatory in-person moves. How will they guarantee that everyone will be safe there? Are there free unlimited masks available for all the students? Are there enough resources available on the island to support and protect all students and their families and kids when they have already disregarded students' requests for other complicated problems regardless of safety concerns with COVID-19?"

Please consider that our concerns are not relevant to whether we prefer to live in the US. It is not relevant to a long notice by the school for individual arrangements for the return. Also, that is not relevant to adapting to a new country. This is a permanent issue. It is just because we have only one more term there, and this short period will cause tremendous hardship for us and our family and kids. 

As requested, we strongly need to ask you to kindly consider "the hybrid option" for the reasons mentioned in the petition.

There are many personal reasons, but we don't want to bother you and take your time for personal reasons. We want to highlight a few in-common important issues here. We must highlight that WE are the ONLY SGU term-5 group in this disastrous situation. It's not similar to previous or upcoming term-5 medical students.

The school got optional opportunities for the last term-5 students (January 2022).

After the Fall 2022 semester (OUR TERM-5 semester), the next group of term-5 students (January 2023) are the students who are in in-person term 3 right now on the island. They will settle there for a long time with their families and kids when they will start their term-5. 

Regardless of the COVID-19 concern, making two significant moves to the island and going back in just 16 weeks is almost impossible for many term-5 students "with family and kids." Please imagine this specific situation and consider our concerns on items 1 to 6:

1- Because of medical issues or other conditions, some family members and kids didn't fully vaccinate or vaccinate at all. Still, they should come with their parents/caregivers to the island. Please let us know how the school guarantees that no COVID-19 concerns are there for these people? Through mandatory in-person moves, SGU directly accepts the responsibility for any health issues for those people. Please confirm that your welcoming schedule is included to get the safety issues for all the students and their families. Please clarify all the school administrators confirm and guarantee that all school and island resources are capable of creating a completely safe environment for "all the students and their families" by this mandatory in-person decision.

2- As full-time medical students, we are not working; just one family member works to support the family and kids. Unpredicted rising expenses for the cost of living (rentals, flights, and ...) made it impossible for our supporters to be able to secure the family and kids and pay 2 separate costs of living for the family; one in the US and one for us in Grenada at the same time. That is crushing for the family, even with maximum financial aid support. The massive difference in costs for rentals, flights, and other stuff between the last year and now can be found and compared by a quick search on the internet.

3- It will ruin the kids' education and mental health to find and start a school in Grenada, leave it in less than 4 months, and return to another school elsewhere. Also, what is your plan to guarantee the new COVID breakout doesn't affect the kids' health?

4- It's been mentioned that there is always a term-5 when you decide to go back to mandatory in-person at SGU.

Please kindly clarify if there could be ANY similar term-5 students with similar problems to us at SGU. The problem is 16 weeks of mandatory moving there just for some students who are going to start their term 5. As mentioned, it's an unfair, permanent issue just for us in this specific situation.

As we mentioned, after the Fall 2022 semester, the next group of term-5 students (January 2023) is the students in term 3 right now on the island. They will settle there for a long time with their families and kids when they start their term-5. 

5- One of the solutions "to avoid 2 separate costs of living" was the whole family to move to Grenada. You better understand that in this competitive job environment after the pandemic, our supporters cannot secure their job and live outside the US for just four months, and they will lose their jobs. Finding the right positions and working in Grenada for four months is impossible too.

6- Taking a leave of absence from school cannot also resolve mentioned permanent issues due to the short-term 16-week moves. Please suggest some solutions to us. We are not undergrad students. We are studying at a prestigious medical school. So it is obvious that we need our school administrators should be able to resolve the problems, not ignore them.

We are all like a family. We are sure that if the SGU administrators care about specific term-5 students' issues and resolve them by giving the online option, it will positively affect thousands of people who are part of the SGU family.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

 

Sincerely,

Some SGU Term-5 Medical Students