Kevon Felmine

The fam­i­ly of a re­tired health in­spec­tor now on the verge of death claims he de­vel­oped sev­er­al blood clots af­ter re­ceiv­ing the Ox­ford As­traZeneca COVID-19 vac­cine last week.

The man’s nephew told Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne that his 60-year-old un­cle went to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty last Wednes­day and re­ceived the shot.

On Fri­day morn­ing, the man com­plained of bel­ly pains and went to lie down.

“Like he went to get his bel­ly rubbed and when it was time to get up from the bed, he could not get up. From his waist down; to­tal­ly paral­ysed. To­tal­ly, to­tal­ly gone,” the nephew told Al­leyne by phone.

The nephew said his un­cle did not get his bel­ly rubbed and be­fore get­ting the vac­cine, had no pains or symp­toms of any sick­ness.

“It re­al, re­al bad right now,” the man told Al­leyne

The rel­a­tive said doc­tors at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were try­ing their best but had al­ready told the fam­i­ly there was noth­ing more they could do for him. He said doc­tors told that fam­i­ly that the on­ly cause they could as­cer­tain that it may have been a re­ac­tion to the vac­cine.

The fam­i­ly is now call­ing on the Min­istry of Health to con­duct more re­search on the vac­cine, as they said scans have since un­cov­ered sev­er­al blood clots in his body and down to his toes are now dis­coloured.

In an­oth­er me­dia re­port, Faleel Ali said the doc­tors had ad­mit­ted to fam­i­ly mem­bers that it was the vac­cine that had caused the blood cots, as there was no oth­er ail­ment that could be re­spon­si­ble. Ali said the doc­tor told the fam­i­ly his un­cle might on­ly have a few hours or days to live, de­pend­ing on how his body re­acts to blood thin­ners.

He ex­plained that be­cause his un­cle was a pa­tient of the car­diac clin­ic, he got a phone call last week re­quest­ing that he go to the health fa­cil­i­ty to get the vac­cine. He said al­though the fam­i­ly ad­vised him against go­ing, he put his faith in med­i­cine.

By Fri­day, he was suf­fer­ing ab­dom­i­nal pain and par­tial paral­y­sis. Rel­a­tives took him to a pri­vate med­ical cen­tre where a CT scan showed a blood clot block­ing an artery. The doc­tors there ad­vised rel­a­tives to take him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for an emer­gency surgery. How­ev­er, doc­tors there ini­tial­ly re­fused to ad­mit him, say­ing that it could be COVID-19 and in­sist­ed that he do a test first. Even af­ter the test, fam­i­ly mem­bers claimed sur­geons re­fused to do the op­er­a­tion.

Ef­forts by Guardian Me­dia to reach South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour last night were un­suc­cess­ful.