After four hours waiting at the Georgetown Public Hospital to meet with a doctor, Dexter Scotland, one of the shot Linden protestors, was admitted as a patient and is awaiting surgery to the face.
Scotland, a 28-year-old father of three, was shot to the face on July 18 during a protest over an increase in power tariffs. Three persons were shot and killed and at least 20 others injured, after police opened fire on protestors.
The injured man’s mother, Murlene Scotland, had told Stabroek News that he had to be re-admitted to the Linden Hospital Complex after an x-ray showed that foreign objects were embedded in his face.
Stabroek News caught up with Scotland while he sat outside the Accident and Emergency Unit, where he said he had been for hours without seeing a doctor. The man explained that he was told the doctor who he was required to meet with, only worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am to 11am. He noted that he arrived in an ambulance, accompanied by a nurse, at 1pm.
“They tell me the doctor gone over to the Dental Clinic and that I got to wait until Tuesday to see him… the nurses here telling me that this is ‘small potatoes’ and how they got people here much worse than me because I walking and talking but I can’t get rest… I can’t talk for too long or my whole face hurting… can’t even breathe properly,” Scotland said. A wound at the entry of the man’s left nostril was visible.
He related that after the shooting, he spent six days at the Linden Hospital Complex and was discharged on Monday, although he was in pain and an x-ray still had not been done. He returned on Wednesday after the pain worsened and the x-ray that was performed revealed “fragments” near his ear and two below one of his eyes. As a result, he was transferred to the city hospital yesterday to have them removed.
“Before I left, I was asking them for an x-ray but they refuse. The doctor said my nose ain’t break and is just disrupted tissue. When I went back in pain yesterday (Wednesday). they did the x-ray and see the fragments,” Scotland pointed out.
He noted that at the Georgetown Hospital, he only fatigued himself further as the hospital’s staff gave him a “push around.” Being frustrated by the long wait, his mother opted to contact persons in Linden, who then got in touch with AFC executive and attorney Nigel Hughes.
Mrs. Scotland suggested that it was only after the intervention of Mr. Hughes that the hospital showed an interest in her son’s case. He was eventually admitted and is expected to undergo surgery on Tuesday.
