Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (ER­HA) has been or­dered to pay com­pen­sa­tion to the fam­i­ly of a woman who died from an in­fec­tion she con­tract­ed at the San­gre Grande Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal af­ter un­der­go­ing a rou­tine op­er­a­tion in 2018.

High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion as he up­held the med­ical neg­li­gence claim brought by the ad­min­is­tra­tor of Chevonne Jack­son’s es­tate ear­li­er this week.

On June 24, 2018, the 43-year-old in­sur­ance un­der­writer was ad­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal to un­der­go a hys­terec­to­my to re­move fi­broids.

Af­ter un­der­go­ing surgery, she con­tract­ed a bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tion and suf­fered res­pi­ra­to­ry com­pli­ca­tions.

She re­mained ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal un­til Au­gust 4, when she died.

Lyn­don Legall, the ad­min­is­tra­tor of Jack­son’s es­tate, filed the law­suit through at­tor­neys Nigel Tran­coso and Shiv­an­na Kit­wa­roo, claim­ing that Jack­son died as a re­sult of neg­li­gence by the ER­HA and its staff.

In its de­fence, the ER­HA called the hos­pi­tal’s do­mes­tic su­per­vi­sor, who tes­ti­fied about the clean­ing pro­ce­dures for the ward where Jack­son was placed af­ter surgery.

How­ev­er, no of­fi­cial records were pre­sent­ed to show that sani­ti­sa­tion pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed while Jack­son was hos­pi­talised.

In de­liv­er­ing his rul­ing, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran found that the in­fec­tion was caused by less-than-ster­ile con­di­tions at the hos­pi­tal due to in­ad­e­quate san­i­ta­tion.

While he up­held the claim, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran did not de­ter­mine the amount of com­pen­sa­tion to be paid, or­der­ing in­stead that it be as­sessed by a High Court Mas­ter at a lat­er date.

The com­pen­sa­tion is ex­pect­ed to be sig­nif­i­cant, as it will large­ly be based on Jack­son’s age and in­come at the time of her death. She had been pro­mot­ed to man­age her com­pa­ny’s San­gre Grande branch six months be­fore she died.