RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An un­vac­ci­nat­ed Clax­ton Bay con­trac­tor, who test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, is call­ing on the Min­istry of Health to hire more staff at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, and at the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal to pre­vent COVID deaths.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Bal­ram Laloo, 34, of Clax­ton Bay said im­prop­er care be­cause of staff short­ages and in­ex­pe­ri­ence led to him hav­ing blood clots and a stroke.

Say­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal left him scarred, Laloo re­vealed he was now suf­fer­ing from deep vein throm­bo­sis (DVT) and lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty on his left side be­cause of the stroke.

Laloo said his trou­bles start­ed in late Oc­to­ber when he de­vel­oped a high fever and ex­pe­ri­enced low oxy­gen lev­els. He was rushed by am­bu­lance to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where a PCR test re­vealed he was COVID pos­i­tive.

On Oc­to­ber 26, Laloo said he was trans­ferred to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal where doc­tors in­sert­ed a femoral line in­to his right leg to ad­min­is­ter med­i­cine and IV flu­ids.

Laloo said the op­er­a­tion was done by a team who ap­peared to be in­ex­pe­ri­enced. He al­leged that a wrong femoral line was used, and the im­prop­er pro­ce­dure led to an in­fec­tion on his leg. Fol­low­ing con­tin­u­ous in­tra­venous med­i­cines, Laloo said he felt con­tin­u­al­ly weak and start­ed to vom­it blood.

Even though he re­quest­ed veg­e­tar­i­an meals, Laloo said this was not pro­vid­ed.

"We were get­ting two slices of bread with sar­dine, smelling fresh at 11 am for break­fast? And lunch at 3 pm with the rice and chick­en al­so smelling fresh. We used to get tea in a cup small like a KFC condi­ment cup and the tea came cold," he added.

Laloo said af­ter com­plain­ing he was dis­charged on No­vem­ber 5 with­out a PCR test be­ing done. The cut on his leg had not healed and Laloo said his con­di­tions wors­ened at home.

"I con­tin­ued to vom­it blood and I went back to the Emer­gency de­part­ment af­ter which I was trans­ferred to Point Fortin. From No­vem­ber 8 to the 22, I was hos­pi­tal­ized there," Laloo said.

Even though the con­di­tions were slight­ly bet­ter, Laloo said the staff was over­worked and in­ca­pable of car­ing ad­e­quate­ly for the num­ber of pa­tients.

"A nurse said they have one nurse to 40 pa­tients. That can­not be right," Laloo added.

He said af­ter be­ing dis­charged from Point Fortin, he was sent to a step­down fa­cil­i­ty at the Debe UWI cam­pus but while there he con­tin­ued vom­it­ing blood and was tak­en back to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal on No­vem­ber 27.

Laloo said he was ap­palled when a med­ical doc­tor told him that she was fed up with the job and did not think it was worth the risk.

"Most times it was in­terns on the wards and there was a short­age of nurs­es. It is not nice to see peo­ple ly­ing down in the hos­pi­tal wait­ing to die. That is how pa­tients are dy­ing be­cause there is not enough staff to see about them," Laloo said.

He al­so ad­mit­ted that he self-med­icat­ed with the par­a­site-drug Iver­mectin and on De­cem­ber 14, he con­vinced the hos­pi­tal staff to dis­charge him as he felt he was not get­ting ad­e­quate care.

"I know I got worse in the hos­pi­tal. Right now, I am just start­ing to get some mo­bil­i­ty af­ter the stroke. I feel weak and tired. I get trou­ble breath­ing and I am on med­ica­tion I'm try­ing to see which lawyer can help me," he said.

Laloo said while he is for­tu­nate to be alive, many oth­ers have died at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

"This is be­cause there is not enough ex­pe­ri­enced staff to care for the crit­i­cal­ly ill at the hos­pi­tal. The gov­ern­ment must hire more staff else more peo­ple will die," he added.

Re­cent­ly Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said Iver­mectin is not ap­proved for the treat­ment of COVID as there was no phys­i­cal ev­i­dence that sup­ports the use of Iver­mectin.