Samuels Morris, the country’s latest novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) victim, was a diabetic who was “very ill” and was admitted to the public hospital in a “bad shape.”
In a telephone interview with Sunday Stabroek yesterday, his sister, Wendella Morris, explained that Samuel made several visits before he was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
“He was just diabetic. Well I believe—it’s my opinion, I am not the doctor, I have been a nurse— but because of that, other things kicked in, because you know diabetes like friends. The kidneys, the heart and all those things. But then the COVID might have spiked those things also because the weakness…You know what his words to me were? ‘In all my life I never felt like this…’ He was sick, he was very ill, very ill-looking. He was admitted to hospital in bad shape,” Wendella said.
Samuel, 67, a resident of Strathspey, East Coast Demerara, was tested positive for COVID-19 just days before he passed away in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
To date, his family remains puzzled as how or from where he might have contracted the respiratory illness. “That is the worrying thing we cannot trace. He didn’t visit anybody, he didn’t travel or anything of the sort. Well, he was going to work and home but he drives…he had his mask and sanitizer,” Wendella said.
Samuel is the ninth person to have died from COVID-19 in Guyana. Up to yesterday, the number of confirmed cases remained at 82 since no new test results were released by the Public Health Ministry.
‘Weakness’
Wendella noted that prior to being admitted, Samuels experienced symptoms, including shortness of breath and weakness. “He was complaining [about] this weakness because he even said to me all the food I am eating, I just feel weak,” she said.
She explained that on the afternoon of April 12th, Samuel telephoned her and related to her that he felt as though he was getting a cold. “Usually we would chit chat. He call us, we call him. He called me the Sunday afternoon and he said he was weeding the backyard and he feel as if though he is having a cold. So I say, ‘You get cold? Oh god, you get cold?’ Because with this COVID in the air thing, that’s the worrying part and knowing that he is a diabetic,” she related.
Three days later, she said, he returned home from work and the symptoms had worsened. “He came home from work not feeling well, and felt feverish, still feeling weak and increasing weakness, as a matter of fact,” Wendella said.
As a result, Samuel was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) under the suspicion that his blood sugar might have been high and he was getting a normal cold and flu.
While there, Wendella said, he underwent a number of tests and was told that there was a slight infection.
Because his blood sugar was high, he was administered pills and was subsequently sent home.
According to Wendella, Samuel took the following day (Thursday April 16th) off from work but reported the following day for duty. Upon returning home, she said, he slept away in the car. “It’s the mercy of God took him home because he managed to get the car right up to the gate and went to sleep in the car,” Wendella added.
A friend went to Samuel’s house and found him sleeping in his car.
Wendella said Samuel was taken into his house and she video-called to speak to him and advised that he return to the hospital.
“They managed to get him into the house… You can’t understand clearly what he was saying…I said ‘Sam, this is not you’— because I know my brother is a bubbly person—‘I said, ‘You short of breath?’ He said no. I said, ‘You look so and you don’t sound well, you look very ill.’ I said, ‘You need to get back to hospital,’” Wendella related.
Samuel refused to go. “…He said I went already and they only give me two tablet…so he was reluctant to go,” Wendella said.
The following day, she added, Samuel agreed to go to the Nabaclis Health Centre. “So he went there. Again the blood sugar was high. He got insulin. He said they give him insulin and he was sent home… again sugar pills,” she recalled.
Tested
At this point, Samuel’s daughter, who resides overseas, raised concerns about his being sent away despite several visits at the hospital in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
She then recommended that he conduct the test privately and offered to pay for it. “So then my other niece said that she understand that Eureka doing it [testing] and she would get onto them. They said yes, okay they would do it. She said yes, she would pay for it online and they appointed him to go Tuesday (April 21st) 12.30,” Wendella explained.
Upon completing the test, Wendella said, Samuel was informed that the results would be available within three to five days.
According to Wendella, Samuel wasn’t feeling well on Wednesday, April 22nd, and he revisited the GPH. The same afternoon he was admitted and subsequently tested.
The results for the test at the hospital came back before Eureka’s. Samuel was COVID-19 positive.
On the morning of April 26th, Samuel’s breathing problems worsened and he was placed on a ventilator. “So he was moved [into] ICU, put on the ventilator and there they tried. They really tried with him,” she said.
He succumbed on the evening of April 29th.
Wendella said she last spoke to Samuel days before he died.
During their last conversation, she recalled, she could tell that he was experiencing difficulty breathing. “There was no improvement. I could have hear that short of breath, I could hear it. He said he had on a mask. I said you are having oxygen? He said yes. Apart from the shortness of breath, I put it down to the mask and the oxygen, he couldn’t really get a proper voice out,” she recalled.
Samuel worked as a welding foreman at Courtney Benn Contracting Services.
