PM Hinds cannot deny he spoke to me on March 4

May 25, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Prime Minister can hardly deny speaking to citizens when he is on the streets of Georgetown, because there are also five attendants who can testify to his action. The PM always has with him five or six attendants whenever he is around.
One afternoon I saw him on Main Street in jogging outfit and I counted six personnel around him. I stopped my car and watched in amusement.
I find it a hilarious sight when he is on the streets with all these underlings around him. A few of us were outside of the Kaieteur News office last year when we spotted him and his entourage on the pavement going north on Saffon Street. Naturally, he had to pass our way. I told Dale Andrews, he will stop and offer to shake our hands but I will refuse the gesture. He did so and I refused to extend my hand, openly rebuking him about his perambulations with all these bodyguards.
Then I showed him the mud-filled gutter outside the KN office. I requested that he do something about it. His retort was that I should volunteer to clean it. That got me annoyed. But he didn’t stay around to hear my noisy vocabulary. He walked away with his group.
I next saw PM Hinds at the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital on Friday evening, March 4 this year. My wife was waiting her turn at the out-patient section, when Hinds came in with the usual numbers around him. He saw the same doctor my wife was waiting on. I am not going to name the practitioner or his specialist field. That is not necessary.
Interestingly, the same time my editor, Adam Harris, was on the phone to me about information circulating in media circles about lack of finance in the UG’s Vice-Chancellor report. Adam’s point was that my name was being mentioned about a leaked report. I told Adam I was not the one involved. I did tell him Mr. Hinds had just arrived.
PM Hinds had a very, very minor injury. As he was leaving, he passed my chair, and jokingly said to me that a certain person struck him. He was being funny within the context of me being a media person and would want to report on what I saw. He named the person, but since I knew it was a joke, I wouldn’t go further.
Mr. Hinds suffered the most harmless mishap, and left the hospital with a tiny strap. There and then I wondered why he didn’t touch down at the Georgetown Public Hospital. If I describe what happened to Mr. Hinds, all, I repeat, all readers, would agree that it was not necessary for him to seek out a private hospital.
But they all do. ‘All of them’ refers to all those who embrace the PPP Government and administer that very government. The PPP brought back one of the big supporters from the UK and gave him the top position in an important public corporation. Two years ago, four of us from KN were at the Woodlands Hospital and we saw him patiently waiting his turn. Obviously, he didn’t show any interest in the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Before she died, Mrs. Janet Jagan wrote glowingly in her Mirror column of the free medical services her government offered. But whenever illness came, she went abroad. She died at a private hospital. The most infamous case of course is Fidel Castro. The Cuban dictator loves to boast of Cuba’s medical achievements. When struck with prostrate cancer, a specialist from Spain was secretly flown in. Jamaican economics professor, Norman Girvan, the world’s most fanatical supporter of Castro and the Cuban scenario, is yet to write on this failure of the Cuban medical system.
Fidel now has to sing praise to capitalist Spain.
This particular column was written because of the death of a very famous Guyanese last Tuesday at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Mr. Flavio Camacho. My take on his death comes from what I read in this newspaper. He went in for surgery for kidney stones. He never saw life again.
Let me say upfront; I have a high regard for the administrative ability of the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Mike Khan. I honestly don’t believe you can lay all the blame on him for the countless management problems at the Georgetown Hospital. For me, the structural problem lies in the overall incompetence of the Government of Guyana.
This country certainly needs new political leaders and unless that happens, the hospital, the GRA, GWI, GPL, the police force, judiciary etc., will continue to limp along.

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