HISTORY SHOULD NOT REPEAT ITSELF

Jul 14, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

So what is to be done about Kids First Fund? There has been a deafening silence so far from many quarters over the sequestration of the sick children and the parents and guardians who accompanied them to India.
Upon learning of the plight of these children, the government of Guyana quite commendably came to their rescue by committing to pay what was owed, thereby allowing the children and their parents to be discharged from the hospital. It was an embarrassing situation and quite unfortunate for those who got caught up innocently in the middle.
An apology from Kids First Fund would have been in order and I am sure that this was offered. But this does not settle the issue because there remain serious concerns as to just what arrangements were in place for the settling of the accounts with the hospital in Chennai.
From what we have been told, Kids First Fund intends to settle the outstanding balance owed to the hospital, plus interest, within six months. The organisation hopes to do this through fund-raising activities.
And this is where the problem lies. No child should ever be sent overseas for treatment under a pay-later plan. The hospital in Chennai is a private institution and they are entitled to their monies in advance of hospitalisation. It is invitation to the sort of embarrassment that took place in Chennai when children have to be sent there under pay-later plans.
This is not good enough. No child should be allowed to leave this country for medical treatment overseas unless the full funds are available for treatment.
The Ministry of Health indicated that it has been providing support to send these children overseas. It now needs to be investigated or clarified whether the Ministry provided such assistance without first ensuring that the remainder of the proceeds was in fact raised.
It would be highly unfortunate if the Ministry disbursed funds to Kids First Fund without first ascertaining that the balances needed to pay for the full course of treatment were available.
This is something that should be of interest also to the Auditor General of Guyana. This is not to condemn anyone, but simply to ensure that proper systems are in place and that the right lessons are learnt from any mistake or oversight that may have taken place.
There may be of course a logical explanation for what happened. It could be that there was a pre-arranged agreement between Kids First Fund and the hospital, whereby the bills would have been settled afterwards and there was some misunderstanding over this matter.
All of these things need to be made public and clarified, since the government is saying that it has been supporting the work of Kids First Fund. And since public funds are involved, there needs to be a full disclosure as to just how these funds were utilised.
An ugly diplomatic incident occurred because of the actions of the hospital. And now there is going to be greater controversy because of a recent development.
The Chennai saga has now taken an unfortunate twist with the death of one of the children who was shuttled overseas for treatment.
It is being suggested that the child may have died because of an infection that developed after surgery and allegations are flying around that the hospital had refused to grant treatment in India when the child developed a fever.
The Indian High Commission needs to provide an explanation as to whether the hospital in question did refuse treatment when the child had begun to show signs of a fever. It is hard for me to believe that this was the case, because it is usually standard procedure in hospitals that regardless of payment issues, treatment is administered and the issue of settling of accounts is done afterwards.
More importantly, we need a full-scale commission of inquiry into just what took place because this is the only way we will gain the necessary lessons from this matter. We cheapen life when we simply allow things such as these to happen without a detailed inquiry and investigation.
It is the least we can do to fully understand what went wrong and what important lessons we can learn so that history does not repeat itself in such an unfortunate manner.

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