Another hospital death, another jail term, another disaster waiting to happen

Aug 13, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Another mother has died at the Georgetown Hospital. A mother of five young children, passed away with her unborn child last Wednesday. Yet another enquiry will be held. These probes we never seem to hear about the outcome. There never seems to be any criminal charge against the involved doctor. What happened to the investigation that was launched after the death of the ten-year-old kid who was kicked in the stomach and was sent home?
What happened to the police probe into a missing passport which was handed to an immigration official by a departing passenger with surveillance cameras all over the place?
But forgive my cynicism of the ragged mess that my country is essentially made up of, when I say that when the cameras were checked, they revealed that Santa Claus stole the woman’s passport and flew away with it to the North Pole.
A loan officer of a bank was sentenced last Thursday to eighteen months on a three million fraud charge by Magistrate McLennan. Could any human in this country believe this, after what happened at the Camp Street prison in two consecutive years? He is a first offender. He didn’t violently maul his victim. Couldn’t a fine and community service have sufficed? Once more I was the guest of Stan Gouveia’s radio programme The Hot Seat, last Thursday on Hits and Jam Radio. I told Stan I would make the most tyrannical president the world has ever seen.
Using the president’s power in the 1980 Constitution (as President Granger is currently doing), I would walk into some magistrates’ courts and do what President Forbes Burnham did.
What I am about to describe is a true occurrence. It was during the construction of the President’s College. One of the contractors was way behind schedule and was recalcitrant. The President was livid. He went to the construction site, came out of his car, went up to that particular contractor and said to him; “show me your car.” When the contractor complied, Burnham exclaimed; “get into it and don’t come back on this site.”
That is what I would do, if I am president, with certain magistrates that see people as animals to be caged. So we have a president that I am betting will not say a word on this issue, but is the same president that has accused me (who partially contributed to his election victory) of creating mischief in Guyana. This is the same president that responded to the ruling of the Chief Justice by asserting that it is her interpretation of the constitution and he has his.
The Minister of Public Security is not going to say a word on this jail term, but that is the same Minister that has accused me (who partially contributed to his election victory) and David Hinds of wanting to bring the PPP back to power.
So why are they going to stay away from commenting on that decision to jail the banking official? Because as President and as Minister, they can’t comment on judicial decisions. That is blatantly and egregiously untrue. The President reacted publicly to the Chief Justice’s ruling on the GECOM issue. And it is the President himself who said that he and his ministers can make comments in their personal capacities. He resorted to this theory when the Minister of Communities criticized the Chronicle’s journalism, in a published letter.
The President’s reaction was that the Minister was commenting in his capacity as a private citizen. Fair enough! Can President Granger in his personal capacity offer a comment on the jailing of this banking official? Would he like to comment on the harshness of the sentence? Would Minister Ramjattan, in his capacity as a citizen, like to give his opinion on Magistrate McLennan’s decision in the context that it is he, the Minister, that feels the heat from the society when overcrowded prisons in Guyana explode in fiery conflagration and violent death?
So let’s return to the caption of this column. As I type this article my mind ran straight to a movie I saw long ago with that husband and wife team – Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It was on the rush to get out of Cuba at the airport after the government was overthrown by Castro. I envisage such a picture in Guyana as entry to the US become harder as Trump truncates the numbers of visas issued to Third World countries. As Dante’s inferno spreads in Guyana, the psychotic rush to get out will create hell at the airport, as in that movie.

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Another hospital death, another jail term, another disaster waiting to happen

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