Patients allegedly infected while being treated at GPHC

Two patients who were both discharged from the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) on Thursday are alleging that they were infected by doctors at the hospital, and have even accused the doctors of being ignorant.
Businessman Jummal Pinder, a 22-year-old East Bank Demerara resident, told Guyana Times he had been involved in an accident on April 15 last, after a blow-out caused him to lose control of the car in which he was travelling; and it swerved off the road and eventually flipped, causing him to sustain a broken hip and leg, along with several bruises to his face and body.
Pinder said he was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC), and was hospitalised for about three weeks. Doctors at the GPHC inserted steel in his leg in

a surgery.
According to him, the pin which kept the steel in place was inside of his foot for about three weeks, during which time he was under severe pain but thought it was normal. However, a few days after the pin was detached from his leg, the leg became swollen and started to ooze.
Alerted by this, he revisited the GPHC about two weeks ago, and was told that his leg was infected.
“When I came here, my foot was so bad that they had to hold it up. It was swollen, and one of them people end up dropping my foot, and the thing burst and started oozing a set of blood, and inflammation was just running out quick, quick, quick,” Pinder reklated.
He said he was treated with antibiotics and sent away. He returned last Wednesday for a checkup, but was again sent away.
Last Saturday, while experiencing excruciating pain, a high temperature and vomiting, he revisited the GPHC and was hospitalised.
The young man said he was again forced to undergo yet another surgery to rectify the condition. He said his condition has since been improving and is currently healing, but he is upset at the way the doctors had handled his matter, since he believes he could have lost his leg because of their negligence.
Another patient, who requested that his name not be published, told <<Guyana Times>> he had experienced the almost exact situation. This 34-year-old who hails from North Ruimveldt, Georgetown related that he had been involved in an accident on March 10 last, when he was struck off his motorcycle by a car that made a sudden turn.
The father of one said he was taken to the hospital by the driver, and was treated and sent away. He explained, “They did an external fixation. They put in four screws (in my leg), and one of those four screws was sent in way over to the other side (of my foot). So while it was there, it was irritating my skin all de time and causing infection”.
He said while he was at home his foot was developing an infection, which caused him to visit the GPHC on Monday. He claims that the nurses sent him away, telling him they had a lot of work to do, and his clinic day was on Wednesday.
The man complained that his foot had already developed an abscess, which had burst on Tuesday and was bleeding. “The abscess burst at home, and it was bleeding (badly); but I couldn’t come (then), I had to come Wednesday. So when I came on Wednesday, they admit me to the hospital and they cut meh foot, remove the steel that was on the other side…”
He said that before the doctors had inserted the screws into his foot, his bones were together in the X-ray test, but after they operated on it again, the bone separated. He said the doctors did the surgery, but his condition worsened.
“Like they don’t know what they doing,” he cried.
Efforts to get a comment from an official from the medical facility proved futile.