Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 53-year-old mar­ket ven­dor from Rousil­lac has threat­ened to sue the State over a health au­thor­i­ty’s re­fusal to al­low his 28-year-old Venezue­lan wife to do­nate a kid­ney to him. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Vi­jay Nanan made the threat in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA), yes­ter­day,

Ac­cord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Nanan’s lawyer Gary Ramkissoon stat­ed that in Au­gust 2018, his client suf­fered a heart at­tack while be­ing ex­am­ined by a doc­tor at a pri­vate nurs­ing home in San Fer­nan­do. 

He was even­tu­al­ly trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was di­ag­nosed with kid­ney fail­ure. 

Af­ter be­ing dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, Nanan was ad­vised to vis­it a re­nal clin­ic every two weeks. 

He ini­tial­ly com­plied but had dif­fi­cul­ties con­tin­u­ing the rou­tine dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

In No­vem­ber 2022, while at­tend­ing the clin­ic at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, he was in­formed that he was a can­di­date for a kid­ney trans­plant. 

Nanan un­der­went a se­ries of blood tests at a pri­vate med­ical lab­o­ra­to­ry and then at­tempt­ed to sub­mit his ap­pli­ca­tion to the Na­tion­al Or­gan Trans­plant Unit in May. 

While there, he met with an of­fi­cial and re­quest­ed that his Venezue­lan wife, Yolan­da Ro­driguez, who he met through their mu­tu­al pas­tor in 2019 and mar­ried in March, this year, be con­sid­ered as a po­ten­tial donor.

The of­fi­cial stat­ed that this was not pos­si­ble as non-na­tion­als can­not be con­sid­ered. 

He was ad­vised to find a cit­i­zen who was will­ing to do­nate a kid­ney, but was un­able to do so. 

In the let­ter, Ramkissoon not­ed that un­der the unit’s pub­lished pol­i­cy donors are on­ly re­quired to be over 18, of a com­pat­i­ble blood group in or­der to qual­i­fy and be med­ical­ly cleared. 

“In con­trast to the pre­scrip­tions of the pol­i­cy, you have ap­plied im­prop­er con­sid­er­a­tions and dis­crim­i­nat­ed, by re­fus­ing to prop­er­ly con­sid­er our client’s wife and/or deem­ing her an in­valid donor can­di­date due to her na­tion­al­i­ty and res­i­den­cy sta­tus,” Ramkissoon said. 

Nanan’s lawyers gave Deyals­ingh, the NCRHA, and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al five days in which to re­spond to the le­gal threat be­fore fil­ing the case as they not­ed that his med­ical con­di­tion re­quires ur­gency. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that the is­sue raised by their client would af­fect many cit­i­zens re­quir­ing or­gan trans­plants. 

“The is­sue is ob­vi­ous­ly one that tran­scends the con­fines of the in­tend­ed claimant’s im­me­di­ate per­son­al cir­cum­stances as it will have a sim­i­lar ad­verse and com­pro­mis­ing im­pact on oth­er mem­bers of the pub­lic in gen­er­al,” he said. 

“The dele­te­ri­ous and dev­as­tat­ing im­pact is ac­cen­tu­at­ed by the fact that there is a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of Venezue­lan cit­i­zens who have set­tled and now re­side in this ju­ris­dic­tion, many of whom have formed last­ing so­cial and emo­tion­al bonds with cit­i­zens of T&T, that have re­sult­ed in law­ful mar­riages.” 

He al­so con­tend­ed that the de­ci­sion was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly in cir­cum­stances where or­gan donors are lim­it­ed. 

“The dis­crim­i­na­tion is ob­vi­ous be­cause a man who is mar­ried to a cit­i­zen would be able to ac­cept the do­na­tion of an or­gan from his wife,” he said.  

“The im­pugned de­ci­sion and/or pol­i­cy is there­fore xeno­pho­bic, ir­ra­tional, and nar­row-mind­ed be­cause it un­fair­ly re­stricts the pool of po­ten­tial donors to cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”

Ramkissoon al­so claimed that it breached his client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. 

“In the case of our client, it un­fair­ly and un­nec­es­sar­i­ly pro­longs the pain and suf­fer­ing which he must en­dure,” he said.

“This is an un­ac­cept­able and un­ten­able state of af­fairs that re­quires im­me­di­ate ju­di­cial in­ter­ven­tion and at­ten­tion.” 

Through the pro­posed law­suit, Nanan would be seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the pur­port­ed pol­i­cy and an or­der quash­ing it. 

He would al­so be seek­ing an or­der com­pelling Deyals­ingh and the NCRHA to con­sid­er his wife as a po­ten­tial donor. 

He has al­so in­di­cat­ed that he would seek com­pen­sa­tion if he is forced to pur­sue the case and is even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful. 

Nanan is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, and Ganesh Sa­roop.