SWRHA: No racist doctor at SFGH

The South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) has condemned a social media user who created a fake Facebook profile of a doctor alleging racism in the treatment of patients at the San Fernando General Hospital.

This comes days after a medical intern was suspended from the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, pending investigations, for alleged racist comments she posted on social media.

The latest racist rants have been posted under the profile of Micah Marley, who claims to be a general practitioner at the SFGH since January 2010. The SWRHA disputed this, saying there is no doctor by that name employed at the SFGH.

The photograph of a doctor, used as the profile picture of Micah Marley, was extracted from the American Essence Magazine from its blog on cancer tips from black doctors.

One of the offending posts states, “I am a medical doctor and several times I abandoned Indo patients and attended to afro patients. I remember an Indo woman came in the hospital gasping for breath and I went and attended to a patient with flu symptoms. Two smiley faces are inserted and the post ends with the words, “Think the woman died.”

The second post is in defence of the suspended medical intern who was attached to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex.

That post reads, “So what’s so wrong what she said. We all know coolies racial.... come on. Give the girl a chance. Steups. We know Sat racial and yet the government fund Divali event steups.”

The SWRHA in a release said it had reviewed its human resource and payroll databases and could confirm there was no doctor by that name employed at the authority nor was ever employed by the SWRHA.

“It should be noted that the profile image used in this post is also a photo used at https://www.supportivecarematters.org/5-great-tips-from-black-doctors-on-cancer,” the release stated.

The SWRHA said it was disappointed with the post which sought to make assertions that were malicious, false and aimed at disrupting and causing disharmony among the patients they served.

“Regardless of the ill-intent of this post, our dedicated physicians at the SWRHA continue to treat our patients based on the Canadian Triage Acuity Scale (CTAS) System that allows patients to be triaged and prioritised according to the type and severity of their presenting signs and symptoms, and Our Patient’s Charter which states that patients will be given impartial access without considering his/race, religion, gender, national origin or social class.”

It also reassured the public of its commitment to the continued provision of quality health care to the population.