Kevon Felmine

Staff at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) are once again un­der scruti­ny af­ter 35-year-old Guyanese na­tion­al Jeetindra Sookram died of a sus­pect­ed heart at­tack an hour af­ter he was de­nied treat­ment there be­cause he was not a T&T cit­i­zen.

Sookram was then rushed to the Char­lieville Med­ical Cen­tre Ltd for treat­ment, but died in the back seat of a Nis­san Navar­ra in the pri­vate clin­ic's Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, Ch­agua­nas car park on Thurs­day. Doc­tors there said his symp­toms sug­gest­ed he suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack, as he had com­plained about se­vere chest pains.

"I think it is neg­li­gence that caused him to not have a chance. I can't un­der­stand how tourists can come in­to this coun­try and get treat­ed like this," Sookram's part­ner, Vidya Baichu, told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.Baichu and Sookram, a farmer from the Guyanese is­land of Wak­e­naam, had been on a two-week va­ca­tion here and was stay­ing at their friend Melis­sa De­osaran's War­ren Road, Cunu­pia home.

Chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, She­henaz Mo­hammed, has since in­struct­ed CEO Ku­mar Boodram to check the ros­ter to iden­ti­fy which work­ers were on du­ty when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. Mo­hammed said yes­ter­day that Sookram's fam­i­ly has been asked to pro­vide the RHA with de­tails of the in­ci­dent, as an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched.The in­ci­dent comes weeks af­ter ba­by Sime­on Cot­tle's death five hours af­ter his moth­er, Quel­ly Ann Cot­tle, un­der­went a C-sec­tion at the Mt Hope Women's Hos­pi­tal.

Telling of the tragedy while wait­ing out­side the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary yes­ter­day, Baichu said they were talk­ing at De­osaran's Cen­tral work­place around 7.30 am when he com­plained of a slight pain. De­osaran had tak­en them, there be­cause she had to drop some­thing off. Baichu said she gave Sookram two painkillers, be­liev­ing he may have been tired from their trav­el­ling here, but it did not help.

"He could not sit and he could not stand be­cause the pain was get­ting to him more. It kept get­ting worse so we took him to the hos­pi­tal (EWM­SC)," Baichu said."When we got there, I went in with him and they took him straight to the place where they took blood and did tests. "When I went to reg­is­ter him now, they asked for ID and I gave them his pass­port. They told me he is not a Trinida­di­an res­i­dent and so all the ser­vices, we would have to pay for it.

"We asked them how much was the cost, they said they were not able to say, but what­ev­er ser­vice they do we would have to pay for it."Baichu is now call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to probe the in­ci­dent, say­ing if Sookram had re­ceived help at the hos­pi­tal he might still be alive. She said even while Sookram was gri­mac­ing from the chest pains, EWM­SC med­ical staff told him to take a seat while they tend­ed to oth­er pa­tients.

Baichu said Sookram had no known heart con­di­tion and nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced chest pains be­fore."I just want the Gov­ern­ment to look in­to it, be­cause a lot of Guyanese come across here on va­ca­tion ... and this could hap­pen to any­body and the treat­ment that we got, I don't want it for any­body else."I can't un­der­stand how vis­i­tors can vis­it this coun­try, go to the hos­pi­tal and can't get help. Maybe if they did not send us away, maybe there was a chance that he would still be alive.

"I am up­set be­cause it is a pub­lic hos­pi­tal. Peo­ple go to Guyana and any­body could go to the hos­pi­tal and get treat­ment. No­body is charged. I can't un­der­stand how in a pub­lic hos­pi­tal in this coun­try, you have to pay for a ser­vice and their neg­li­gence is what caused his death."

NCRHA: Emer­gen­cies a pri­or­i­ty

Ex­press­ing her dis­plea­sure at the in­ci­dent in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said Sookram should have re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion at no cost, as there was no pol­i­cy which re­stricts free health­care to na­tion­als alone."There is no pol­i­cy that says that any non-na­tion­al can be turned away from emer­gency care be­cause they are un­able to pay. Emer­gency care is avail­able to all na­tion­als and non-na­tion­als. Un­der no cir­cum­stance can any­one be de­nied care," she said.

"I have asked for the fam­i­ly to pro­vide us with the de­tails so that an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion can be launched in­to this. I am very dis­turbed that some­thing like this has hap­pened. "Emer­gency care is any­where. Even if you go to the Unit­ed States, where you pay for care, if you go in with an emer­gency it is free, so it is here too. It be­wil­ders me how this hap­pened and I am very an­gry that is has hap­pened."

Mo­hammed said the Min­istry of Health was yet to de­vel­op a pol­i­cy with re­spect to health­care for non-na­tion­als for elec­tive and emer­gency ser­vices. She said no fees have al­so been spec­i­fied for ser­vices at hos­pi­tals, there­fore all ser­vices should be free.