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GPHC may terminate doctor’s contract
Dr Madan Rambarran
Dr Leslie Ramsammy
By Latoya Giles
Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, has said that even though Dr. Vishwamintra Persaud, services at the hospital are likely to be terminated by the hospital, the entire process has to be keenly documented.
Dr. Vish Persaud, according to New York Department of Health documents, was found guilty based on a guilty plea of attempted course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree in 2008.
In the same year he was sentenced to an eight-year order of protection, ten year probation, and also fined US$2,500 among other fees.
Dr Persaud abused the child from 2003 to October 2007 and only stopped after an adult was told.
The Minister who spoke briefly to this newspaper last night said that “everything has to go through due course”.
Minister Ramsammy explained that there are a number of issues that they have to give before his services are terminated. The Minister added that there were certain rules of employment and termination of services that must be followed.
He said that the administration has to make sure that the entire progress does not end up in a legal tangle. Last week, Minister of Human Services and Social Security Priya Manickchand said she was horrified and appalled that Dr Persaud was granted a licence and employed in Guyana.
The Minister went on to tell reporters that she was informed by Minister Ramsammy that Dr Persaud’s services would be terminated.
Director of Medical Services at the Hospital, Dr Madan Rambaran had told this newspaper that Dr Persaud would remain employed at the hospital since he posed no danger to anyone.
“Somebody like Dr Persaud with his… background cannot in my view work in a public institution or work as a doctor where he is going to come into contact with women and children,” the Minister opined.
Meanwhile, Dr Rambaran in a letter to this newspaper said that he was interested in knowing what Minister Manickchand did since November 12, last, when this matter became public and horrified as she was, to ensure application of the relevant laws.
Dr Rambaran said that issues pertaining to Dr Persaud are sufficiently complex and difficult.
He said that unfortunately any attempt to maintain objectivity and to call for a balanced debate is fraught with danger in this season of intolerance and pronouncements of “zero tolerance”: self righteous screaming and finger pointing seems to have the ascendancy over balanced examination and action.
In deliberating on crimes, punishment and reform, he said the great advance of modern societies has been to recognise and insist on the need to recognise the perpetrator as also a human being and not to lose sight of his/her humanity.
Failure to recognise the humanity of the perpetrator, he says, renders him/her as less than human and consequently no punishment is too severe. In this regard, beheading the beast or burning it at the stake would be alright.
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