Whistleblowing and transfers

Last week we reported on the case of a Berbice nurse, Ms Sherlyn Marks, who was transferred from the Fort Wellington Hospital after her complaints relating to a Region Five Councillor, Ms Carol Joseph became public. The nurse had accused the Councillor of abusing her position to access unusual amounts of a prescription painkiller from the Fort Wellington Hospital.

She described an occasion on a Saturday evening, 3rd December, 2016, when she was on shift and Councillor Joseph came to the hospital. Seeing Nurse Marks, the Councillor allegedly said, “Let me call the RHO [Regional Health Officer] before I have to sin here tonight…” According to the Nurse, the RHO then came and asked her to “pull up” the injection, whereupon she refused. He then instructed her to hand over her keys to her junior staff member, which she also refused to do, and it was only when he demanded them himself that she complied, and saw to it that he signed for them. It was he, therefore, who collected the drug and administered it, thereafter returning the keys.

She went on to relate that whenever she is on the evening shift, the RHO calls the hospital to find out who is working, and if she is on duty he would ask the sister to wait back to administer the drug or the Councillor would come on a different shift.

Nurse Marks’s justifiable concern as indicated to Stabroek News is that she could be liable under the Dangerous Drugs Act for dispensing drugs improperly if she acceded to the Councillor’s requests.

Nurse Marks’s commendable conscientiousness, punctiliousness and respect for the rules notwithstanding, no one in this country will be altogether too surprised to learn that shortly after her story landed in the public arena, she was notified that she was being transferred to the Bath/Experiment Health Centre from 20th April. Neither would anyone be too surprised to learn that Regional Executive Officer Ovid Morrison had remonstrated with her about going to the press and had complained that he had not been sent a copy of the letter.

In the first instance Nurse Marks had written officials months ago, and had followed that up with a letter on December 13th, 2016. The letter, which was seen by Stabroek News, was sent to then Minister of Health Dr George Norton through the Ward Sister (acting) of the hospital and the Regional Health Officer of the Fort Wellington compound. In addition, it was copied to Director of Regional Health Services Dr Kay Shako; Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud; Chief Nursing Officer Taramattie Barker; Region Five Chairman Vickchand Ramphal; and then Permanent Secretary Trevor Thomas. In short, Nurse Marks observed all the necessary protocols required in these situations.

“To this date no disciplinary action was done to curb this situation…I am still awaiting intervention on this matter,” she had written then Minister of Health Dr George Norton on 13th December last year. But of course, no response had been forthcoming. Her complaint then made its way to the media.

As is usual in these situations, however, Guyanese officialdom is missing in action when it comes to explaining themselves. They are either completely unavailable or they hadn’t seen the letter, like the REO; or they had been struck with a bout of amnesia, like the Chief Medical Officer who was aware of the letter but could not recall its contents in detail, or the Regional Health Officer who was unable to recollect if the letter had been sent through him. The present Minister of Health Volda Lawrence is currently out of the country, but her PRO ventured that he thought she had not seen the letter, but would address the matter on her return.

It might be added that when this newspaper asked the Regional Health Officer Stephen Chefoon whether he had prescribed any prescription drug for Councillor Marks, he responded that he sees many patients and cannot remember if she was one of them. Considering the circumstances and the identity of the patient that seems nothing short of extraordinary.

As for Councillor Joseph, when our reporter contacted her she brushed aside the claims as being untrue and said that someone appeared to be targeting her. However, subsequent to that, the Councillor resigned from the Region Five RDC. While the elected official herself declined all comment, our account stated that sources close to her had said that she was advised by “persons in government to resign”. Then in our edition yesterday, we carried a report that Councillor Joseph had also resigned from all posts she held in the PNCR, although in the words of a source, “it was not because of the nurse story…”

As was mentioned in our reports last week, Nurse Marks could be categorised as a whistleblower, although despite all the promises by this government to protect whistleblowers, no legislation on that subject has reached the Parliament as yet, and there appears to be no urgency about it being drafted either. In fact, excepting the fact that Ms Joseph has resigned with great expedition from the RDC, which assuming there is substance to the claims would certainly be to her credit, the rest of the story is pro forma: An impropriety occurs; officialdom doesn’t know, can’t recall, is uncontactable; but the one who has followed the rules is transferred with dispatch.

And what was the reason for the transfer? It was, according to a copy of the letter which Stabroek News saw, “in an effort to establish good vaccination coverage within this area [Bath/Experiment].” The authorities have a problem, because the public simply will not believe that piece of fiction. Nurse Marks never asked for a transfer, and if by some unbelievable stretch of the imagination there had genuinely been no connection between the publicising of the Councillor Joseph matter and the Nurse’s removal from Fort Wellington then the authorities would have held off on it, if only for appearances sake. But it seems they don’t even care about appearances, so one must conclude it is not just about punishing the Nurse, but also pour encourager les autres.

In other words, nothing much has changed with the government when it comes to creating a rule governed society.