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Monday, February 17, 2025

Unease at Garth Road after 5th COVID death

by

Kevon Felmine
1782 days ago
20200403

While the Min­istry of Health re­fus­es to con­firm that Williamsville fa­ther Vic­tor Mooti­ram died of COVID-19 at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, some res­i­dents are now pan­ick­ing over pos­si­ble com­mu­ni­ty spread.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty along Garth Road where the el­der­ly man and his fam­i­ly resided yes­ter­day but no one was home and neigh­bours said the Mooti­ram fam­i­ly had been quar­an­tined. 

Neigh­bours ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that they are now wor­ried Mooti­ram’s rel­a­tives in the com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­act­ed with him and his fam­i­ly.

When the news team vis­it­ed Mooti­ram’s rel­a­tives, they said on­ly his son could share any in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, calls to his son’s phone were not an­swered Thurs­day.

Sev­er­al neigh­bours said when Mooti­ram fell ill he went to a doc­tor who ini­tial­ly treat­ed him for the flu. How­ev­er, his con­di­tion wors­ened and he was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was test­ed for the virus.

How­ev­er, they claimed Mooti­ram died be­fore he was moved to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

At yes­ter­day’s Health Min­istry me­dia con­fer­ence, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram was asked at which fa­cil­i­ty the fifth COVID-19 ca­su­al­ty had died. How­ev­er, Paras­ram de­clined to an­swer.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour about whether re­ports the lat­est COVID vic­tim had died at the San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tal were true. But Ar­mour said based on pa­tient con­fi­den­tial­i­ty he could not give that in­for­ma­tion, adding that the min­istry was the on­ly au­tho­rised body to speak on those mat­ters.

The map shared by the min­istry yes­ter­day re­vealed some­one who con­tract­ed the virus lived in Williamsville.
How­ev­er, a work­er at the hos­pi­tal said work­ers there were now con­cerned about pos­si­ble ex­po­sure.

“All the pa­tients close to that pa­tient, or who in­ter­act­ed with that pa­tient, as well as the staff (what­ev­er the cat­e­go­ry) would have po­ten­tial­ly been ex­posed.

“This means they should be quar­an­tined and test­ed if they have symp­toms. Of course, this will not be done since they will try to keep it qui­et,” the work­er said.

In Williamsville yes­ter­day, res­i­dent Faizo­ol Rami­ah, a neigh­bour of the de­ceased, said he was un­aware that Mooti­ram had con­tract­ed the virus un­til he learned of his death.

“The in­for­ma­tion I gath­ered was that he was ill and they took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died. The in­for­ma­tion I re­ceived was that he went to a fu­ner­al and there were rel­a­tives from away. The in­for­ma­tion what peo­ple from around here gave was that he con­tract­ed it there,” Rami­ah said. 

“I feel very sad and I feel very scared know­ing that it is not too far from me, so I have to take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions in­doors and self-quar­an­tine with my fam­i­ly. I go to work, not dai­ly, but for this pe­ri­od I’ve been in and out. Of course, the nec­es­sary must take place be­cause the oth­er peo­ple, no­body, is com­ing out of their hous­es.”

An­oth­er neigh­bour said it was al­so scary know­ing that some­one so close con­tract­ed the virus and whose fam­i­ly was out and about in­ter­act­ing with oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty.

The Garth Road Open Bible Church, where Mooti­ram wor­shipped, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Mooti­ram’s fam­i­ly yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, they al­so as­sured mem­bers that strict guide­lines were fol­lowed at their re­cent gath­er­ing af­ter mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion ex­pressed con­cerns about pos­si­ble ex­po­sure.

A post on the church’s Face­book page stat­ed that the last ser­vice was held on March 15.

“For mem­bers and the pub­lic’s safe­ty and peace of mind, we would like to en­sure you all that our church close­ly fol­lowed the strict guide­lines set by our na­tion­al board and gov­ern­ment. Our last con­gre­ga­tion­al ser­vice was on Sun­day 15 March, fol­low­ing which all ser­vices were sus­pend­ed. Our mem­bers ad­hered to strict pro­to­col and were not in con­tact with each oth­er in our at­tempts to help flat­ten the curve.

“While our pas­tor, Rev Seep­er­sad Khadan and his wife were con­cerned about their dear friend’s health, no phys­i­cal con­tact was made dur­ing this time in ef­forts to be com­pli­ant with guide­lines giv­en for safe prac­tice.”

The church was al­so ag­griev­ed that they could not pro­vide Mooti­ram with a prop­er fu­ner­al due to the new COVID-19 reg­u­la­tion that pro­hibits the gath­er­ing of more than five peo­ple.

Sev­er­al posts on so­cial me­dia al­so paid trib­ute to Mooti­ram.

Mooti­ram’s death came hours af­ter the virus claimed the life of Care­nage res­i­dent Vernise Lodge.

Lodge, who was the first fe­male claimed by the virus, was one of 68 pas­sen­gers from an ill-fat­ed Caribbean cruise aboard the Cos­ta Faval­osa who re­cent­ly re­turned home and were im­me­di­ate­ly quar­an­tined at Camp Ba­lan­dra, be­fore she was tak­en to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal along with 48 oth­ers af­ter they test­ed pos­i­tive.

 

COVID-19


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