Sascha Wil­son

A change in word­ing has led to a de­lay in dis­tri­b­u­tion of sus­pen­sion let­ters to the five doc­tors and four nurs­es in­volved in the Cae­sare­an sec­tion lead­ing to the death of Crys­tal Boodoo-Ram­soomair.So said South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Paula Chester-Cum­ber­batch who was re­spond­ing to con­cerns that up to lunchtime yes­ter­day, the doc­tors were not giv­en let­ters of sus­pen­sion.Boodoo-Ram­soomair bled to death at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on March 4, af­ter giv­ing birth to a ba­by girl.Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, at a press brief­ing on Mon­day, an­nounced the sus­pen­sion of the work­ers.In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, the Med­ical Prac­ti­tion­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MPATT) said the doc­tors went to the Med­ical Chief of Staff's of­fice yes­ter­day morn­ing and no let­ters of sus­pen­sion were avail­able."We ex­pect that hon­esty should al­ways pre­vail, and that the pub­lic be ac­cu­rate­ly in­formed by all those in au­thor­i­ty and in pro­fes­sions," the re­lease stat­ed.

In tele­phone in­ter­view, Chester-Cum­ber­batch said the Hu­man Re­source de­part­ment was in the process of de­liv­er­ing the let­ters yes­ter­day.She said hos­pi­tal staff met with her yes­ter­day, say­ing they were stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with their col­leagues."My staff of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal knows the on­ly way they can do this is act­ing as pro­fes­sion­als," she said.She said the Gy­nae­col­o­gy De­part­ment would now be op­er­at­ing with a staff of three as was done some­time ago, adding that the sit­u­a­tion was just tem­po­rary to fa­cil­i­tate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion."My staff has giv­en me the as­sur­ance that their num­ber one pri­or­i­ty is to the peo­ple of T&T-the pa­tients," Chester-Cum­ber­batch said.Rel­a­tives of Boodoo-Ram­soomair are claim­ing that two ar­ter­ies were cut dur­ing the Cae­sare­an sec­tion, caus­ing her to bleed to death. How­ev­er, ba­by Danielle, her third child, was healthy and do­ing well.