While he decried conditions at the New Amsterdam Hospital, Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran yesterday rejected claims by her family that a woman undergoing surgery on January 19th died as a result of a power failure.
The blackout led to a frantic search for someone to turn on the standby power while Tirtawattie Shoandeo was being operated on. No one could be found and GPL did not restore power for an hour. During the outage, the woman’s surgeon left the operating theatre on two occasions, once to go to his car for a mini light and then shortly after he went in search of a flashlight. It is unclear if he found one.
Her only surviving child Yuvraj Shoandeo however remains adamant that there is a “cover up” by the hospital and ministry officials and he intends to pursue legal action.
“Long after surgery she died, the doctors ensured that all measures were taken…Hours after the surgery she died not a few minutes after so that was not the cause of her death. The doctors know there are ways of keeping a person alive and they did that…. Blackouts happen every day and this is not the first time while someone was in surgery there was a blackout…. She had a very serious condition and this was
