A com­bi­na­tion of al­leged ne­glect and a botched eye surgery claim has left Ann Noel, the wife of box­ing icon Claude Noel fum­ing over his present con­di­tion at a home for the age in Tacarigua. He is said to be to­tal­ly blind with an am­pu­tat­ed leg.

Ann, a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er in the Unit­ed States, is set to re­turn home soon with their sons Sean and Claude Mau­rice Noel Jr, with in­ten­tions of lodg­ing an of­fi­cial com­plaint to Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rance Deyals­ingh over the shab­by treat­ment dished out to her hus­band at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal Clin­ic.

She is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene and help with the high costs in­volved in tak­ing care of him.

At present, Noel, 73, is in need of a live-in care­giv­er and a pros­thet­ic leg, which is be­ing sourced at a fa­cil­i­ty in Wood­brook, while the fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to take care of all his bills, in­clu­sive of sup­plies, med­ica­tion and his stay at the home for the age, among many oth­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to Ann, the pros­thet­ic leg is be­ing of­fered to them at no cost from the Wood­brook fa­cil­i­ty, but she is hope­ful that gov­ern­ment can help ex­pe­dite an ex­pect­ed lengthy process to re­ceive it.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Mon­day, Ann gave a tear­ful ac­count of her hus­band's ex­pe­ri­ence at the hos­pi­tal, say­ing: " When he start­ed hav­ing cataract prob­lems, he was get­ting treat­ed and he was rec­om­mend­ed sev­er­al things like laser and cataract re­moval, but to make a long sto­ry short, when he had the surgery done, they blind­ed him, they cut his reti­na so that was the first sign of trou­ble go­ing to­tal­ly bad.

And then with di­a­betes run­ning strong­ly in his fam­i­ly, glau­co­ma sets in and with not hav­ing the prop­er eye treat­ment, he lost that eye as well, so now he is to­tal­ly blind. With his foot, he hap­pened to cut it some­how and it start­ed get­ting worse and worse.

Every time he went to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal clin­ic, they dressed it when it wasn't that bad and when it start­ed get­ting bad they start­ed spread­ing it fur­ther apart so he would come every oth­er week and then it was dragged down to once per month and his nephew Ren­ny had to step in many days un­til his next clin­ic vis­it to dress it, and he did the best he could do."

Noel, the coun­try's first light­weight world ti­tle­hold­er when he de­feat­ed Mex­i­can El­ga­to Gon­za­les in 1982 has been a house­hold name the world over, who was once feared for his pow­er­ful punch­ing abil­i­ty, a num­ber of for­mer T&T box­ers have said.

But his chal­lenges out­side the box­ing ring have been get­ting the bet­ter of him. Ann said his nephew Ren­ny Noel at­tempt­ed to re­port the shab­by treat­ment her hus­band was get­ting to high­er hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials but was kicked out by se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

Ann said the de­ci­sion to put her hus­band at the Age With Joy Home in Or­ange Grove, Tacarigua was to en­sure he re­ceives the phys­i­cal ther­a­py he needs and to re­store him to the jovial per­son he has al­ways been.

"He likes crack­ing jokes and laugh­ing," Ann ex­plained.

She took se­ri­ous of­fence to hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials not wear­ing ID cards as she was un­able to iden­ti­fy nurs­es she claimed did not per­form their jobs prop­er­ly, as well as claims that the Ari­ma hos­pi­tal was out of sup­plies to treat Noel.

On a few oc­ca­sions, they were di­rect­ed to the Mt Hope Med­ical Hos­pi­tal to get sup­plies there.

"My thing is that peo­ple put politi­cians in­to of­fice to fix all these things. The T&T hos­pi­tals are very bro­ken, an­i­mals in Amer­i­ca are be­ing treat­ed bet­ter than pa­tients/peo­ple at T&T hos­pi­tals and I am not just speak­ing for me, but oth­er peo­ple who went through the same bad treat­ment that Mr Noel, a world box­ing cham­pi­on who did jus­tice for his coun­try, did.

I am not say­ing that my hus­band was per­fect be­cause he wasn't but re­gard­less he put T&T on the map and he should have been treat­ed with a lot more re­spect," Ann ex­plained.

Noel, who the High­way in To­ba­go is named in his ho­n­our (Claude Noel High­way), is ex­pect­ed to re­turn home in April when he is strong enough to walk.