Personally, last night (7-July-2019) was not a good period for my family and I am not in a good frame of mind but thanks to God. My wife and I received a call that an elderly friend who has assisted in doing some minor works for us was hit by a car when the car skidded off the road on the Marshall Road and went into the makeshift house killing a girl of age 6 instantly and severely wounding the guy. The driver fled from the vehicle and escaped the scene leaving the vehicle behind. He was pulled from under the car and rushed to the nearby clinic. We decided to go there to see his condition and offer whatever assistance we could provide.
When we got at the clinic, we saw him in a ghastly condition with his left leg swollen, pains in his chest and lacerations on his body. We rushed him to the ELWA hospital for better treatment but were told that there were no beds at the hospital. We insisted on the hospital treating him and humanely the nurses informed us that they would find a bed for him. They removed a guy from his bed as he had completed his treatment and was waiting for the morning hours to be discharged. We bodily lifted the injured guy from the vehicle, placed him in a wheel-chair and took him into the hospital and towards the bed that had just been vacated.
Suddenly, a fellow who seems to have some level of authority came and refused the injured guy acceptance and treatment at the hospital because as he said –“There was no room in the inn.” My wife had already registered this injured guy but we were told to leave from the hospital with him. We felt hurt and dejected. What is the essence of a hospital if it cannot cater to the health needs of its people? Where is the moral conscience of some of those who we consider as nurses, PAs and doctors? Even if a hospital does not have an available bed, which was not the case, could they not see the excruciating pains that this guy was going through? We were told by the guy that brought him to the 1st clinic that his body was under the car after the accident occurred and they had to pull him from there.
As I talked to this guy who I surmised was a Physician Assistant (PA), I became angry and he told me not to politicize the issue. He told me to take the man to JFK Hospital. The nurses for fear of losing their jobs beg me to go with the injured man. We had to take him bodily and toted him into the car onto JFK. I could feel the pains that he was undergoing given his age. We got to JFK around 10pm after passing the Blue Crest College where a ghastly accident had just occurred. A man in a Corolla vehicle was instantly killed by a trailer which was coming from the Corolla’s opposite direction. It went right into the corolla head-on and instantly killed the lone driver of the vehicle, a family father.
When we got to the JFK Hospital, a nurse assisted us in removing the injured man from the vehicle and into the hospital. Again, they was no room in the inn and they started treating him whilst he sat in the wheel chair. He was badly hurt and they administered drip (intravenous treatment) to him without even asking his history. As they (nurses who looked like people who were undergoing training) were preparing him to do his x-ray and later administer the cast to his legs, he started breathing with difficulty and then it slowed until they could not see any movement in his chest. They then checked his heartbeat and could not get any pulse. A doctor came passing by and when she saw my wife weeping hysterically, she decided to check him. She thereafter came to me and shook her head saying that he did not make it. HE DIED IN THE WHEEL CHAIR WHEN HE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED AT ELWA HOSPITAL. TIME IS CRITICAL TO TREATING AN INJURED PERSON BUT HE WAS REJECTED THERE. The hospital which was established to treat the sick and wounded and not turn away anybody sent him away to his death.
It hurt that people are dying on a daily basis in this nation for lack of concern by medical practitioners. Some get into this area of study not out of passion and the desire to help those in medical needs. Some do not have feelings for people, which is cardinal to entering into this profession. Why become a medical person when you don’t have compassion and are unprepared for the task. This is not carpentry wherein you are working with planks. You are dealing with human lives for God sake.
Today, somebody who could have survived died. In fact, the doctor got angry and told the nurses that they contributed to the man’s death. She informed them that they could have gone to her and request for an additional bed for the man. She also stated that it was unprofessional of them to treat a man in a wheelchair who had a fractured leg. When one has a fractured leg, as she stated, you don’t recline the leg on a chair in an upward position. This is because blood coming to the fractured area will return to the heart causing cardiac arrest.