– health officer
Region Nine Health Officer Eugene Xavier said he had informed the regional administration about Juan Carlos Stapleton Rodriguez about a week and a half ago, after the man submitted a proposal for opening a clinic, which he had already started to build.
Xavier said Rodriguez, a Venezuelan drug dealer, had submitted a proposal to him stating his intention to open a clinic which he had already started building, purchasing an X-ray machine and establishing a laboratory. Xavier, who is a medic, and who has an office at the Lethem hospital, said Rodriguez sent a “brown envelope” to him about a week and a half ago which contained the proposal, his certificates and contracts he had signed with another medic at the hospital and two nurses.
“I forwarded the envelope to the Regional Executive Officer and I informed him that I knew nothing about this man,” Xavier told Stabroek News recently. He said he had also informed the Director of Regional Health Services who is based at the Ministry of Health, about the man’s presence in Lethem. Xavier said he is not tasked with investigating doctors but it is his duty to inform authorities such as the regional administration, should an unknown person open a private medical practice in the region. He said it is then up to the region to take the relevant steps.
However, when Xavier informed the regional administration about Rodriguez’s activities the man had already been treating patients for a month. Xavier said he did not know that the medic and the nurses had been working with the man until he saw the contracts they had signed. He also said he had heard of the man but had never met him personally.
Meanwhile, last Friday evening Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy told Stabroek News that he knew nothing of Rodriguez’s clinic in Lethem and said he would investigate the matter. Ramsammy also said his ministry does not issue licences for doctors to practice in Guyana as this is done by the Medical Council of Guyana. He said he doubted that the Council would have granted a licence to a foreign national to open a private practice in Guyana without the person first working at a hospital under supervision. The minister explained that the individual would have had to have first been issued with an institutional licence and after working for a year under supervision would then have been licensed to open private practice. “The council would first have to verify they have the prerequisite skill to practice before they are given a licence to work privately,” he emphasised.
Secretary of the Council, Juanita Johnson yesterday told Stabroek News that while the man had submitted an application the council had not granted him a license.
Rodriquez had rented two rooms from Elaine Foo’s Bed and Breakfast and and presented documents purporting to be issued by the ministry granting him a licence to practice in Guyana as a doctor. He then opened his practice, hired the medic and two nurses from the Lethem hospital and started seeing patients. He had told Foo that although he was born in Venezuela, he lived in London for a number of years; had just gone through a nasty divorce and needed a clean break from the life he once knew.
Rodriguez fled Lethem last Wednesday night with just a small package under his arm after his staff accused him of being a bogus doctor and a drug dealer. Before he left he reportedly admitted to Foo that he was a convicted drug dealer who was on the run from his former associates who had been demanding money from him for drugs that were seized by the Venezuelan authorities.
Stabroek News has since seen information that Rodriguez, who sometimes uses Stapleton as his last name and passes himself off as a professor, was held for trafficking in narcotics and sentenced in his home country, Venezuela. A wanted a bulletin had also been issued for him in St Lucia as recently as February after he skipped bail on fraud charges. According to a conviction sheet seen by this newspaper Rodriguez had been arrested in April 2004 at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela as he was about to board a British Airways flight. It was then discovered that he had had 80 vials of cocaine in his stomach. He pleaded guilty before Justice Dr Celestina Mendez in October 2004 and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He was 25 at the time. While the conviction said the man would have been released on December 27, 2013, reports are that after serving two years he appealed the sentence and was freed.
Stabroek News was told that some of Lethem’s prominent businessmen numbered among Rodriguez’s patients along with an army lieutenant and a pastor. Foo had said residents rushed to the man’s clinic like “drowning men clutching at straws.” She had also said that the medication he had prescribed had “healed a lot of people” as some who had been issued medication for pain had found some relief. According to reports, some patients had paid him up to $55,000 in medical bills and he treated about ten patients per day. He reportedly made “loads of money” during his two-month stint and also reportedly paid staff large salaries at the end of the first month with the receptionist receiving $70,000 and the nurses $100,000 each. He did not pay them or his rent for the second month as he disappeared hours after he returned from Boa Vista where he had been incarcerated for five days on suspicion of trafficking in narcotics. When his staff confronted him about their suspicions Rodriguez reportedly broke down and cried but maintained that he was a doctor.
According to residents the man not only advertised his service in church but he also posted notices advertising his services in some of the more popular places in the community which saw many people visiting his office. When Stabroek News first published the story on Saturday, many residents had expressed fear about whether they had received wrong medication from the man. “It is expected that the hospital would be flooded with some of his former patients,” a source said. Persons also questioned why the regional authorities had not investigated the man as they knew he was operating an office. “They should have done something instead we were left at the mercy of this bogus doctor,” one resident said. They also said one of the reasons residents rushed to Rodriguez’s clinic was because the laboratory and the theatre in the spanking new Lethem hospital were not in operation. This newspaper understands that both facilities depend upon air conditioning which does not function. “So you could imagine the extreme heat at the hospital,” a source said.
Sources told Stabroek News that if a pregnant woman experiences complications during delivery she would have to be taken to Boa Vista as no caesarean can be performed at the hospital. “You know how many referrals we have to Boa Vista because the hospital is not functioning as it should, at the old hospital much more could have been done,” one source said. It was pointed out that even if the theatre was up and running there was no surgeon to perform operations. “People cannot have lab samples tested and that is one of the reasons they went to him,” a source said. Rodriguez offered stool, urine and blood tests for $4,000 with the results of the sample results being given a few days later as the man reportedly took them to Boa Vista, Brazil to be tested. He also bought all of his medication in that country as he claimed it was easier than purchasing drugs from Georgetown.
While this newspaper had been told that the theatre and lab have been down for over a month now, Xavier said it has been one week since the two departments have not been working and it was as a result “of the steady blackouts damaging the central air conditioning unit.” He said technicians have already assessed the damage and have submitted an estimate. Xavier indicated too that they are budgeting to purchase six air conditioning units instead of just depending on one central system. He gave assurances that the money is available and work is set to start soon.
Sources had also said that work done on the hospital was inferior and as such remedial works had to be done, which delayed the commissioning of the building. They said the wiring was inferior and the water system was not done properly and both had to be rectified among other problems. At the commissioning of the hospital, Minister within the Ministry of Health Dr Bheri Ramsarran had said it was a state-of-the-art facility which would rival any regional hospital in the country. He had promised that the hospital would also be adequately staffed.
