Due diligence caused delay of support to kidney failure patients

Feb 09, 2018 News

– Ministry Official

The Ministry of Public Health has reportedly not been taking lightly its role to undertake due diligence in every aspect of its operation. It was in so doing that the Ministry was faced with a dilemma which ultimately saw it probing a case that has since impacted the lives of several renal failure patients as well as post-kidney transplant patients.
This publication had reported that because of an error on the part of Ministerial Adviser to the Ministry of Public Health, Mr. John Adams, two kidney failure patients scheduled for transplants will now have to secure new dates, if they survive.
The patients in question are 17-year-old Rovin Sohan of Berbice, and 28-year-old Richard Manpersaud of Campbellville, Georgetown. The two, who will have to continue to find funding for dialysis three times weekly, were hopeful they would have been able to complete the scheduled transplants [February 19 and 20] that have the potential of affording them an improved quality of life.
But due to what was believed to be fraudulent documents submitted, the patients were unable to secure financing from the Ministry in a timely manner to secure cross-matching tests required ahead of the transplants.
In order for them to have been operated on, on the specified dates, cross-matching tests [for the kidney donors and recipients] would have had to be completed and returned to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] by last Thursday.
The surgeries were scheduled to be completed by Kidney Transplant Surgeon attached to the GPHC, Dr. Kishore Persaud.
This publication was provided with documents, which revealed that the GPHC was able to forge a relationship with the University of Miami which has been conducting cross-matching tests for transplant patients for quite a few years. A number of post-transplant patients were able to share with this publication information that showed that they too had benefited from the cross-matching services of the University of Miami, through GPHC, ahead of their transplants. However, when the two earlier mentioned patients turned up with documents from both the University of Miami and GPHC, officials there, including one Ms. Bibi Seeraj and Mr. Adams, had reason to believe that the documents were not authentic. This state of affairs, according to information one of the patients [Manpersaud] shared, even saw Adams calling in the police, accusing them [Manpersaud and Sohan] of presenting fraudulent documents to the Ministry.
In fact, reports reaching this publication suggest that moves have been made at the level of the Ministry to discontinue the collaboration with the University of Miami, since it was not able to authenticate the documents it received from the patients.
Even a number of post-transplant patients have since sought audience with various senior Health officials, both at the Ministry and GPHC, indicating that this decision will impact them as well, since they are dependent on the University to conduct tests required to maintain their wellbeing.
But Public Relations Officer attached to the Public Health Ministry, Mr. Terrence Esseboom, is adamant that the move by Adams or any other official of the Ministry is not due to an error, but rather, a situation that may be farther reaching.
Without sharing too much information, he hinted at the possibility of investigations being apace that are likely to bring clarity to a state of affairs that could prove to be very troubling. This publication has been informed that Ministry officials are suspicious that there has been skulduggery at some level, but this of course has to be substantiated by solid evidence.
According to Esseboom, although the patients affected may be of the view that they are being denied much needed support from the Ministry, this is certainly not the case.
“We are not monsters and we didn’t err in what we did; there was no error and there was no clandestine or malicious act. We just did what any proper institution would do…we have to authenticate documents,” said the Public Relations Officer.
He asserted too that the Ministry has no intention of imposing death sentences on ailing patients.
“We want the people to get the money,” said Esseboom. But he reiterated that it is imperative that in processing legitimate cases, “We want to get authentic documents; letter heads for documents can’t be different. Things are going to unravel later on,” he stated, adding “if something is smelling like a gillbacker, it is more than likely a gillbacker.”

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Due diligence caused delay of support to kidney failure patients

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