Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Where does a ban­dit go when he is shot?

If he ends up in the hos­pi­tal, he is like­ly to be ar­rest­ed.

So what are his oth­er op­tions to get health­care?

Po­lice be­lieve some pri­vate doc­tors may be co­erced in­to pro­vid­ing se­cret “back­door” treat­ment for crim­i­nals.

It was re­port­ed that in De­cem­ber 2013, a pri­vate doc­tor was held at gun­point and forced to per­form surgery at a pri­vate health fa­cil­i­ty to re­move 17 co­caine pel­lets from the stom­ach of a man in St Au­gus­tine.

The in­ci­dent prompt­ed a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pub­lic dis­course over whether the doc­tor should be charged for fail­ing to re­port the in­ci­dent to po­lice. How­ev­er, po­lice said no charges have been laid up to this time.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and April 1, there have been 156 cas­es of wound­ings and shoot­ings. How­ev­er, po­lice said those may not be an ac­cu­rate num­ber of in­stances, as some wound­ings are sim­ply not re­port­ed to the po­lice.

A 2015 re­port con­duct­ed by the Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme, which was part of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, sug­gest­ed that as many as 39.7 per cent of se­ri­ous crimes went un­re­port­ed to the po­lice.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia last month, pres­i­dent of the T&T Med­ical Board (TTMB) Dr Neil Singh said there were in­stances where ban­dits sought se­cret med­ical at­ten­tion from doc­tors.

He en­cour­aged doc­tors to fol­low the prop­er pro­ce­dure by in­form­ing the po­lice if they were treat­ing some­one they sus­pect­ed was a crim­i­nal.

As part of the op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures, med­ical staff at hos­pi­tals are man­dat­ed to no­ti­fy the po­lice of gun­shot wounds, stab wounds, and even sus­pect­ed cas­es of poi­son­ing.

Singh said in pub­lic hos­pi­tals, the ma­tron in charge of a ward usu­al­ly re­ports sus­pi­cious wounds, but in small, pri­vate clin­ics where on­ly one doc­tor is avail­able, it is a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion.

He spec­u­lat­ed that crim­i­nals may pay as much as $3,000 for treat­ment dur­ing a sin­gle vis­it and urged doc­tors not to be tempt­ed by the cash, as this could jeop­ar­dise their per­son­al safe­ty and their ca­reers.

“Don’t fall prey to the mon­ey and en­dan­ger your fam­i­ly’s life and your own life by con­don­ing these un­eth­i­cal prac­tices of treat­ing ban­dits and not re­port­ing them. Be­cause of the con­se­quences, I would dis­cour­age doc­tors from en­gag­ing in prac­tices and let them go to the gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal. You are putting your fam­i­ly at risk, your­self at risk, and you’re dis­grac­ing your pro­fes­sion.”

Singh not­ed that if such com­plaints were brought to the at­ten­tion of the Med­ical Board, ac­tion would be tak­en if ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed that could lead to the re­vo­ca­tion of their li­cences.

Be­sides be­ing paid to keep such op­er­a­tions a se­cret, Singh said doc­tors can al­so be threat­ened in­to si­lence.

He not­ed that fi­nan­cial gain is some­times not the mo­ti­va­tion of some doc­tors, not­ing some sim­ply want­ed to get the crim­i­nals out of their care.

He main­tained that while the Med­ical Board did not con­done doc­tors treat­ing sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals with­out in­form­ing the po­lice, the con­se­quences of re­fus­ing to treat such pa­tients could be fa­tal.

“I know of a doc­tor who ac­tu­al­ly told me that a ban­dit was shot and he came by him for treat­ment, and he said he could refuse this guy, but this guy will tar­get me, or I can treat him, fix him up, and tell him I don’t want to see him again.

“But think of the per­spec­tive of the doc­tor. The doc­tor is see­ing a pa­tient bleed­ing out; the doc­tor must of­fer some care. That same pa­tient goes to the hos­pi­tal, and in ca­su­al­ty, they will treat him even though he may be a ban­dit, they will treat him right next to his vic­tim; that is their du­ty.”