rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
The relatives of 46-year-old Indra Sankar are pleading for assistance from officials to get her an MRI which is urgently needed to save her life.
The woman’s daughter, who wished for her name to be withheld, told Guardian Media her mother has a mass growing on her brain which needs to be removed. Sankar has been warded at the San Fernando General Hospital since last weekend after suffering a seizure on Saturday.
“They said if she comes out of the hospital and comes home ... she might die. She would continuously keep getting the seizures and even though she would take the seizure medication, that would only work for a while. The mass has to be removed and in a timely manner,” the daughter said.
“They (doctors) were saying that where it is ... it have some major blood vessels there, so they say even if they go in to operate ... what they said they’ll do is if they can’t remove all the mass, at least they would remove most of it and they would try not to interfere with none of the blood vessels. If that mass keeps pushing against those blood vessels that could burst.”
But before the surgery can be done, doctors need to conduct an MRI scan. However, the daughter said the family was told that the machine at the hospital was currently not functioning and officials weren’t able to say exactly when it would be repaired. Instead, she said they were told it would probably be fixed by the end of the week.
She said the family is unable to afford to have the scan done privately due to economic constraints brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
She is calling on authorities to either get the machine up and running soon or to expedite the process for her mother to be transferred to another public facility to have the scan done.
The South West Regional Authority (SWRHA) told Guardian Media that the machine would be up and running by this week.
“An expedited order has been placed with our supplier to ensure the machine is operational within the upcoming week. SWRHA assures that the provision of excellent care to our patients continues to be our highest priority,” it said in a response to queries.
