Sto­ries by

Derek Achong

The State has agreed to pay com­pen­sa­tion to two women, who were quar­an­tined un­der leg­is­la­tion meant for per­sons en­ter­ing in­to T&T de­spite hav­ing no re­cent trav­el his­to­ry, ear­ly in the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Sasha Su­per­sad and Vidya Lal­la filed sim­i­lar con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suits af­ter they were re­leased from quar­an­tine in April 2020 but the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on­ly re­cent­ly of­fered to set­tle with con­sent or­ders be­ing en­tered be­fore Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams, late last week. 

Un­der the con­sent or­ders, the State agreed to pay $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to Su­per­sad, of Arou­ca, and Lal­la’s hus­band Sharaz Ho­sein, who con­tin­ued her case af­ter she passed away in cir­cum­stances un­re­lat­ed to COVID-19 with it still pend­ing. 

In both their law­suits, the duo’s at­tor­neys were con­tend­ing that af­ter vis­it­ing pub­lic hos­pi­tal com­plain­ing of res­pi­ra­to­ry is­sues they were or­dered to be quar­an­tined un­der the Quar­an­tine Act, Quar­an­tine (Mar­itime) Reg­u­la­tions and Quar­an­tine (Air) Reg­u­la­tions al­though such was on­ly in­tend­ed to be ap­plied to per­sons en­ter­ing in T&T. 

The duo’s lawyers al­so claimed that the al­leged mis­use of the reg­u­la­tions breached their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to not be de­prived of their lib­er­ty ex­cept by due process of law and their right to pro­tec­tion of the law.

Fol­low­ing their law­suits, the on­go­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions were amend­ed to pre­vent the is­sue from re­oc­cur­ring with oth­er per­sons fac­ing manda­to­ry quar­an­tine dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

In the law­suits, the women’s at­tor­neys were claim­ing that their pe­ri­ods of de­ten­tion/quar­an­tine were hor­rif­ic and trau­mat­ic as they claimed that fa­cil­i­ties were in­ad­e­quate, ill-equipped and un­der­staffed. 

“The ex­pe­ri­ence has left the Claimant de­pressed, frus­trat­ed, and trau­ma­tized as she was sub­ject­ed to an or­deal that can be on­ly de­scribed as cru­el and in­hu­mane,” they said in Su­per­sad’s court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia. 

In her af­fi­davit at­tached to the case, Su­per­sad said on March 30, 2020, she went to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty to be neb­u­lised since she is an asth­ma pa­tient. 

Su­per­sad claimed that af­ter the pro­ce­dure, nurse at the fa­cil­i­ty stat­ed that she had to be swabbed and test­ed for COVID-19 de­spite not show­ing any symp­toms.

With the PCR test re­sult still pend­ing, Su­per­sad said she was told that she had to be quar­an­tined. 

She was trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope where she was placed in an iso­la­tion room with oth­er pa­tients. 

She spent two days there be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the Cau­ra Health Fa­cil­i­ty. 

In her af­fi­davit, Lal­la, a for­mer clerk at a phar­ma­cy at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, said that she was tak­en to the Mt Hope hos­pi­tal in an am­bu­lance on March 28, 2020, af­ter she com­plained of feel­ing un­well. 

She was kept at the fa­cil­i­ty un­til March 31, when she was trans­ferred to Cau­ra where she met Su­per­sad.

Both Su­per­sad and Lal­la claimed that they were test­ed while at the hos­pi­tal and re­mained COVID-19 neg­a­tive un­til the end of their quar­an­tine and even­tu­al re­lease. 

Both women claimed that there was not a bath­room for fe­males on­ly and they had to walk past the male wards to use the toi­let. 

“The con­di­tions of the toi­let were al­so dis­gust­ing. Pa­tients would use the toi­let and not flush it. Sev­er­al of the toi­lets were backed-up with fae­ces and toi­let pa­per,” Lal­la said. 

Su­per­sad claimed that she was placed next to an el­der­ly pa­tient, who staff re­fused to clean reg­u­lar­ly. 
“Af­ter hav­ing din­ner, she defe­cat­ed all over the floor and smeared it every­where. The stench of the fae­ces per­me­at­ed the ward and I could not sleep,” Su­per­sad said. 

Su­per­sad claimed that on one oc­ca­sion a nurse at­tempt­ed to give her an in­jec­tion for “blood clots” which she ob­ject­ed to and on an­oth­er she was of­fered med­ica­tion, which was in­tend­ed for a para­plegic pa­tient. 

“I was hor­ri­fied to learn that such a mis­take could have been made with such po­ten­tial dis­as­trous con­se­quences giv­en the ca­su­al at­ti­tude and un­pro­fes­sion­al man­ner of the nurs­es,” Su­per­sad said. 

Su­per­sad and Lal­la were rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Robert Mitchell, and Ganesh Sa­roop. 

Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Raphael Ajod­hia, and Savi Ramhit rep­re­sent­ed the State.