…family accuses GPHC of cross-infection
…1 new positive, 126 active cases
The passing of a loved one is difficult to bear, even in normal circumstances. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the feelings of grief and sadness may be amplified by stress and uncertainty.
Dead: Geerjadai Jagnarine
However, in the midst of stress and uncertainty, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has once again been accused by family members of the country’s latest COVID-19 death of infecting her with the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, after she visited the health institution.
Geerjadai Jagnarine, 69, of Lot 408 7th Street, Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara (ECD), passed away early Saturday morning – three days after being transferred from the GPHC to the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
During an interview with Guyana Times, the woman’s family cast blame on the public hospital for infecting the elderly woman with the virus.
According to the family members, Jagnarine was taken to the GPHC on June 30 just after midday, since she was having a number of complications and was a patient of the hospital’s heart clinic.
“When she arrived, her daughter went with her, so she was admitted. Her daughter was with her throughout the process, and in the wee hours of the morning, around 01:00h to 02:00h they put the daughter out the hospital and tell the daughter that she cannot be there anymore because they have coronavirus patients in the hospital,” the dead woman’s granddaughter, Sarah Alli, relayed to this publication.
After Jagnarine was admitted, a COVID-19 test was conducted. On July 2, 2020, family members received a call from the Public Health Ministry, informing them that Jagnarine was tested positive for the virus.
“Knowing my grandma, she had no sign, no symptoms of COVID-19. She went into the hospital COVID-19 free because there is no family member that has COVID-19 because they were all tested,” the granddaughter stated.
The following day, the Ministry deployed health officials to their home to complete COVID-19 tests on the family members living in the same house as Jagnarine.
“The results came back all negative three days after. How is it that she got COVID-19 and her family members don’t have it?” Alli questioned health authorities at GPHC.
Alli added, “she basically got it from the hospital; basically, like the last two people that died because she had no sign, no symptom – nothing of COVID-19. If she had it home, I am pretty sure family members would have gotten it by now, and they were all tested.”
Alli, who is in despair, is contending that “she was exposed to COVID-19 at the Georgetown Public Hospital; she did not leave home with COVID-19. She got it from the hospital, and being a heart patient and a very sickly woman, she got it from there.”
The young woman stated that her grandmother going into the hospital without COVID-19 and suddenly contracting the disease is worrying.
“They said that she was recovering and they sent her to West Demerara Hospital to quarantine her, three days later she is pronounced dead.”
The woman died at 04:00h at the Demerara Regional Hospital in Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara (WCD), but the family never received the information about the woman’s death until around 10:00h. In fact, the hospital has refused to allow the family to verify the woman’s body.
“We went to the hospital, and when we went to the hospital, they said that they shifted her to a private parlour without our consent or without we seeing her dead body or anything of that sort but shifted her to a private parlour and also she was already sealed so we could not see her. Up to now, we could not identify her,” Alli concluded with great dismay.
As of July 11, 2020, Guyana recorded some 291 confirmed cases, ever since the detection of patient zero on March 11. Saturday marks four months since the country has been battling the deadly virus, and health authorities are yet to see a positive indication that the curve is “flattening.”
According to the Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard, a total of 54 tests were done as of Saturday. The number of active cases is now at 126 with 19 in institutional quarantine. Six persons are in the dedicated COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with 17 deaths.
Alarmingly, over the past two weeks, a whopping five deaths were recorded. The last COVID-19 death was recorded five days ago when 76-year-old May Portsmouth – a resident of Friendship, ECD, succumbed while receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the GPHC.
Portsmouth’s family had disputed the COVID-19 diagnosis and accused the GPHC of covering up the woman’s death with the virus. Just one day before Portsmouth’s death, 25-year-old Donna Ambrose, a teacher of Lethem, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), was recorded as Guyana’s 15th COVID-19 death.
The country’s 14th COVID-19 death was 34-year-old Abdool Khan of Bartica, who succumbed while being treated at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) since June 22.
Just two days prior to Khan’s death, the 13th death was 42-year-old Kevin Ridley of Albuoystown, Georgetown.
Ridley was admitted to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Unit after complaining of shortness of breath. Doctors at the hospital then conducted a COVID-19 test which came back positive, and the man died just moments after at the hospital.
During last week’s COVID-19 daily update, Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) Dr Karen Gordon-Boyle revealed that for a country with less than one million people, Guyana has recorded a “very high” COVID-19 death rate. (Shemar Alleyne)
