Probe into treatment of Chatoorgoon’s aunt begins

Principal Medical officer of Institutions (PMOI) Dr Maryam Richards, has been detailed to investigate claims by Dr Anand Chatoorgoon about the poor treatment meted out to his elderly aunt and overcrowding at the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH).

Richards, the daughter-in-law of the late President George Maxwell Richards has reportedly requested the files of 92-year-old Kushmawati Girwar, a stroke victim.

Due to overcrowding at the SFGH, Chatoorgoon, a former medical director, said on two different occasions in January, Girwar spent excessive hours lying on a gurney in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department while awaiting a bed space.

Chatoorgoon said the experience was dehumanising as his aunt remained in soggy and dirty pampers in the open space which provided no privacy for a bath or to be cleaned.

He said, on the first occasion, she was able to get a bed space after more than a 12-hour wait on the gurney. On the second occasion, he discharged her against medical advice, after more than 24-hours wait and without any promise of a bed.

Chatoorgoon said the two times he was constantly begging, verbally and via text messages, everybody from the board chairman, director of health, manager of the emergency department, head of the attendants, to help his poor aunt.

Former chairman of the board of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Dr Lackram Bodoe said he was alarmed by Newsday’s report of Girwar’s horrible experience. Bodoe, MP for Fyzabad, said hundreds of other patients have had similar experiences in the past two years.

He also referred to an article by Newsday’s columnist Paolo Kernahan detailing a similar horror story his relative encountered at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex.

“This situation is particularly alarming since only last Friday it was revealed in the nation’s Parliament that the Government was able to “save” $211 million from the health sector in the financial year 2018, as it searched for money to balance their accounts.

“It is obvious that this “saving” came at great cost to those seeking healthcare in the nation’s hospitals,” he said, questioning whether the failure to inject that $211 million into the health sector might be partly responsible for citizens suffering at the nation’s health facilities.

Bodoe linked a lack of adequate resources to support hard-working staff to the long wait in the A&E.

“It appears that the hard-working doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are not being supported by adequate resources to do their jobs in the manner that they would have sworn to do.

“The long waiting time in casualty for beds is directly related to the length of time inpatients stay in the hospital.”

He said if blood tests, X-rays, Ultrasounds, CTs and MRIs were delayed and drugs and other medical items were in short supply then a patient’s stay at hospital would be longer. He said the closure of the Central Block at the Port of Spain General Hospital had decreased the number of beds in the system and chastised Government for not using the 230 beds and diagnostic equipment sitting idle at the Couva Hospital.

Bodoe said, “Additionally, hundreds of qualified doctors and nurses remain out of jobs whilst patients suffer in the nation’s hospitals. The time has come for urgent intervention by this Government to prevent the complete collapse of the nation’s health sector.”