More than three months after the Medical Council of Guyana launched an investigation into police surgeon Dr Mahendra Chand’s treatment of a teenage boy who was tortured while in police custody last year a decision is yet to be issued.

Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who had returned the report sent to him by the council in January asking them further questions, yesterday said while he has heard that the council has made a second decision it has not yet been reported to him.

He said while the council usually writes to him and informs him of its decision, it can also telephone him with the information and he is awaiting word.

The minister told this newspaper that 24 hours after he is informed of the decision he will make it public.

Stabroek News understands that while the council had earlier this year recommended that the doctor, who has come under public criticism, be suspended for two months, it has since rescinded that decision and recommended that the doctor now receive a mere warning. It was further recommended, reports said, that the doctor be removed as the police surgeon.

Recently while announcing that he had sent back the initial recommendation made by the council to the body and requested more information, Ramsammy had said the doctor was placed in a position where he was “damned if he did and damned if he didn’t”.

At that time the minister had said the doctor only had two options before him and whichever one he had taken he would have been criticized.

“What is going through my head is one, the doctor was not part of any torture… the doctor was placed in a position that he had two options… One to walk away, remember the doctor took a Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm because he did ask them to take off the bag [but the police refused],” the minister had said.

According to the minister, if the doctor had chosen to walk away “…we would have all sacrificed him because we would have said he should have taken care of the boy because that is his job. ‘Do no harm’ that is his Hippocratic oath.”

The second option he had was to treat the patient, which he did and made a prescription and referred him, the minister said.

“So if those were his only two options he was damned if he did or damned if he didn’t,” the minister had concluded.

“What I want to know from whomever, the medical council, I have asked them questions, what is any other possible option he had because maybe there was another option but right now I am only seeing two options and any doctor you would have put in the position would have ended up in trouble,” the minister had further stated.

“Unless there is another option I can’t really blame the doctor, but I am not making the judgment I want somebody to tell me what other option… I am really at a point I am not certain anymore, you know when I first read the case I was as appalled as anybody else. I remain appalled but I am not quite sure if the doctor had a choice,” he said.

According to Section 17 (3) (b) of the Medical Practitioners Act of Guyana, if the council finds a doctor guilty of malpractice it can suspend his registration for such a period “as may be determined by the council and approved by the minister.” It was noted that while the minister could extend or reduce the recommended time of suspension, the act does not authorise him to change the council’s recommendation of suspension.

The teen, who was a suspect in the murder of former Region Three Vice-Chairman Ramenauth Bisram, was hospitalised for a number of days and was later released into the custody of his parents following his torture late last year.

Three policemen have since been charged with unlawfully wounding the child, as well as in connection with the beatings meted out to two other men who were being investigated for the same murder.

Dr Chand’s treatment of the boy has been severely criticized by many, including the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), which accused him of ignoring the abuse of the boy and it called for him to be relieved of duties in the police force and prison service.

Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Alli-Hack had also criticized the doctor for administering treatment to the child while he had a bag over his head and said she would have sent a report to the council to investigate the doctor.