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‘Lepto’ victim sought medical attention one week later
After being afflicted with an extraordinary fever compounded with a massive headache and spasms for almost one week, 50-year-old Ralph Stewart was convinced that he needed medical attention.
With the assistance of neighbours, Stewart was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation on Sunday last, where medical officials were able to confirm that he had leptospirosis. Stewart was administered the relevant treatment and was sent home that very night, according to his reputed wife of two months, Kim Gooding.
Dead: Ralph Stewart
However, Stewart’s condition worsened on Monday night, and he was rushed back to the hospital, where he succumbed.
Speaking from the Lot 5 Hadfield Street, Lodge apartment that the couple shared, Gooding recounted the genesis of Stewart’s illness, even as she expressed ignorance of how he could have contracted the disease.
She recounted that, “It was out of the blues that he just come down with a roasting hot fever.”
According to the woman, Stewart, who was a security officer attached to the Sophia Exhibition Site, suffered a headache a few days later. She added that the symptoms did not subside even after a week had passed.
“The fever was getting more and more on him, and then he started complaining about a terrible headache. He started acting funny, like he trembling, and is like he want vomit but nothing ain’t coming up,” Gooding recounted.
She noted that last week Friday was the last day that Stewart was physically able to attend work, because of his condition.
Gooding, who is also employed as a security officer, said that she was at work on Sunday night when Stewart asked her (Gooding’s) 11-year-old daughter, Keiola Raymond, who also lives at the Lot 5 Hadfield Street home, to summon a male neighbour to take him to the hospital. At the hospital, he was diagnosed and treated and subsequently sent home, although he required assistance to talk.
“When I come home and see he, he tell me that they give him some tablets and he got two injections. He could have barely walk on he own,” Gooding lamented.
According to Gooding, that night Stewart’s fever intensified to a frightening level, forcing her to go out and purchase Vicks, which she applied to his skin.
Kim Gooding and her daughter, Keiola Raymond
Gooding said that she believed that the medication offered was responsible for what happened, because, on Monday, Stewart was unable to move his feet.
“I could not understand what was happening; it just seemed queer to me. I had to help move he, but to lift he was very strenuous.”
The woman said that, having recognised that the situation was beyond any assistance she could offer to Stewart, she suggested that he return to the hospital for further medical attention.
Gooding said that she left for work on Monday evening with the intention of visiting some of Stewart’s friends whom she believed could have helped her transport him to the hospital.
However, by the time Gooding returned home, she was informed that Stewart was taken to the hospital and that he had died.
“His ex-girlfriend and the landlord, they come in with some other neighbours and they took him to the hospital and he died there,” Gooding disclosed.
The woman said that she is now concerned for her wellbeing as well as her daughter’s, given the circumstances under which her paramour died. She added that it was just a few weeks ago that her daughter had complained of a stomach ache.
Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, has assured that the families of persons who have been confirmed as having leptospirosis will also be afforded prophylaxis treatment.
And yesterday afternoon, 17-year-old Royden Jackson, of Supply, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, who was a few days ago treated at the GPHC as a suspected case, was rushed back to the hospital after a vomiting spell.
The lad’s mother reported that she became concerned and decided to take him back to the medical institution for further attention.
According to her, the medical officials administered saline and an injection to her son, and advised her to return to the hospital today if the lad continued to vomit.
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