Dear Editor,
I have curiously watched as events unfolded in the handling of the matter concerning a female nurse who was raped while at work at the Wismar Hospital Complex. At this point I must commend the police at Linden for quickly apprehending the alleged perpetrator/s.
The few organizations and members of the public must also be commended for speaking out and taking part in a protest against such an inhumane, dehumanizing and immoral act against a female public servant.
I have deliberately waited a while before commenting on this issue. I wanted to see how the internal organizational negligence would be handled. Where else in this world but Guyana, would public servants, especially teachers and nurses, be degraded to such an extreme in avoidable circumstances and no one in the institutions responsible is held accountable or faces severe disciplinary action. A full investigation must follow as to the circumstances surrounding this matter.
Providing armed security and a new ambulance is all very well, but real justice for that nurse is yet to come. If this matter is to be properly dealt with, compensation for this nurse will have to come from the government and it has to be substantial. The security guard service contracted to the hospital must also be held responsible and a full review of whether it is equipped to render such service must be examined.
While it is important to put corrective measures in place to avoid a future occurrence, it is equally important to determine why those measures were not there in the first place. Substandard service amounts to no service.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Browne
