I was so mentally hurt, I could have cried

Dec 09, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Tuesday, I took Linsday Moriah, a policeman stationed at the High Court, to the Georgetown Public Hospital for treatment for pain in his left shoulder. Mr. Moriah is a policeman who is soft spoken and quite unassuming. He lives in Berbice where he has his family, but since 2007, he has been based full-time in Georgetown.
I knew him from the countless appearances I have made at the High Court, first because of then President Jagdeo’s libel suit and Minister Juan Edghill’s writ to commit me to prison for contempt of court. I have attended the High Court so often that I think know everyone that works there.
At 15.30 hours we entered the X-ray room. The technician directed Mr. Moriah to a cubicle where she requested him to take off his shirt and shoes. When she made the request, she was at the back of the X-ray room so I am not sure if the policeman heard all the instructions. He was told to lie with feet facing north and head facing south. As he was about to lie on the table, she yelled out to him that he had to take off his shoes. I was taken aback by her tone.
Then he went in the opposite direction, contrary to what he was told. As he spun around to put his head to the south, this technician shouted loudly at him again; “get off from the edge of my table.” The man was stunned and so was I. I immediately said to her; “You can’t speak to him like that.” And for a rare moment in my life, I controlled my anger but was deeply hurt.
Mr. Moriah was my responsibility and I felt I let him down by the unpleasantness he faced.
Had I remonstrated with her, I know I would have lost my case. The next thing you would have heard was that Freddie Kissoon was loud, aggressive and abusive.
The last time I was in such a vortex was with my KN colleague Dale Andrews. I did a column on the incident and I will repeat it here and now. It was late a Friday afternoon and Dale ran out of his crucial medication that he must take daily. He couldn’t see his doctor because the Outpatient section was closed for the day and would not be opened on Saturdays. Dale would be in trouble over the weekend if he didn’t get his tablets. We went to the pharmacy but their response was that they could not fill a prescription without a doctor’s signature.
We went to A&E and found the perfect situation. The female doctor on duty was the person in A&E who admitted Dale when I first took him there. She knew Dale’s ongoing condition. Not only did she refuse to write the prescription for which he had his chart so that she could see his medical status, but she was downright hostile. This woman didn’t even give us a chance to explain about Dale’s condition. Mike Khan, the CEO, was not there, and the matron was kind enough to secure a doctor’s signature
I lodged a complaint with the medical superintendent, Sheik Amir. I left my account with his secretary and an appointment was made for me to see Amir two days after. Dr. Amir failed to show, but worse of all, when I saw the expression on his secretary’s face I knew politics and Freddie Kissoon’s name got in the way. No other appointment was made. I was unable to meet with Amir.
I lodged a written complaint with the matron’s office, I never heard back from the administration of the hospital. Dale could have died, but I knew the country I was dealing with and living in.
The administration took a statement from me about the X-ray technician, but I doubt I will be asked to come in. My research on the technician reveals some interesting details which I will not discuss, but many little ones in Guyana are powerful people. The Georgetown Public Hospital is one of the largest testimonies, to date, of the failure of the PPP Government.
In any other hospital, even in brutal dictatorships, that doctor in the Dale Andrews incident would have been disciplined. I wanted her to be dismissed, because I felt she had no place in the practice of medicine.
The unwillingness to discipline its subordinates remains a sickening indictment of the PPP Government. Shortly after Nirmal Rehka got his job at the Ministry of Finance, I documented his attitude to the public in a ten-page document and submitted it to President Jagdeo and copied to Robert Persaud. I was stupid not to see the mediocrity, banality and intellectual vacuum that had overrun my beloved Guyana.

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