Guyana: Civilization and death

Feb 08, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There are some concerned souls currently picketing the Ministry of Health over unnecessary deaths in the public health system. In a dead country that Guyana is, we have to show appreciation for these people.
A placard is the scariest thing in Guyana. People are more afraid to hold a placard in a protest than hide from Godzilla if he is terrorizing Georgetown.
These brave protestors remind me of how dead this country is. I read a letter in yesterday’s Kaieteur News in which the writer says he is a trained Guyanese lawyer living in the UK and went on to state his legal qualities; then cowardice stepped in. After using pungent language to criticize Minister Ramjattan, he sought refuge in anonymity.
This is the kind of dilapidated psyche that has characterized this country the past forty years. I assume that this UK based lawyer is afraid to identify himself because when he visits Guyana, uniformed men with long guns will arrest him at the airport and bury him alive in Le Repentir. Or maybe he is afraid that Brexiters in the UK may recognize him as a pro EU supporter and try to deport him.
He isn’t afraid though to tongue-lash Ramjattan. Trust Guyanese to be stupid people.
And the stupidities never stop. So there is huge outcry about three unnecessary baby deaths in the public health system. And may I ask when we discovered such atrocities? Only when we knew the babies died two weeks ago.
Not two years, not four years, not ten years but for more than twenty years there have been tragic losses of life in the public health system some of which are even more horrible than those three babies. And where were the voices, the letter-writers and the picketers?
A ten-year-old Charlestown student was kicked in her stomach at school in 2017. She went to the Georgetown Public Hospital, given pain tablets and sent away. She died the next day from internal bleeding. A doctor that was hopelessly incompetent was never charged for manslaughter. Maybe there was no picket line for this little girl because she was from an unemployed family from a depressed area. The poor and powerless are still treated with caste contempt even though the “great” Rupert Roopnaraine and Clive Thomas who attempted to overthrow the working class government of Forbes Burnham are now in power.
What is wrong with the collective psyche of this nation? An 18-year-old left Guyana for Suriname through the beach at Springlands and was jailed for 18 months by a Berbice magistrate for illegal departure.
Two days ago a young woman went to Suriname, returned to Guyana on that same beach. She was charged for illegal entry. Please note; illegal entry into her own country. The law says if you leave Guyana you must return through a legal port of entry. But couldn’t the police give her a warning. Or did she refuse to give the police what they wanted as with the youth from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure?
They found him with $60,000 in front of a brothel. He refused to give them his money. So they charged him with possession of three grams of ganja. He spent three nights in the lockups, (Friday, Saturday, Sunday; I thank attorney Patrice Henry for taking the case for me).
What is wrong with the collective psyche of this nation? When deaths were occurring in the public health system, ten years ago, if we had taken to the streets and demanded those incompetent doctors face a judge and jury maybe those three babies would not have died. Society has not protested the insanities in the public health system that have dominated the reign of the PPP and have continued under the APNU+AFC regime.
And the reason lies deep in our class system. Poor people are indispensible. They go to Georgetown Public Hospital and the community hospitals, they die; who cares? They don’t have status for society to recognize them.
It is the same with the NIS, the City Engineer, GWI, Central Housing and Planning Authority, GPL, the police etc. Once you do not have status and wealth, you will not get immediate attention.
In a forthcoming column I will relate a painful experience of a GWI customer over the West Coast. If I hadn’t intervened, the man and his family would have been without water for days due no fault of his. I have to write on that one. I do these things hoping the protestors, demonstrators and picketers would come to the rescue of the poor and powerless. But when a nation’s collective psyche no longer exists, what do you expect?

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Guyana: Civilization and death

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