Sixteen-year-old, Glenston Drakes of Tuschen Housing Scheme, East Bank Essequibo, died on Monday morning after he was taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) last Friday complaining of abdominal pains. His family is saying that the hospital was negligent.
According to the family, they took Drakes to the Emergency department of the hospital after he complained of severe abdominal pain and was urinating blood. He was seen by a nurse and after listening to the complaint, the nurse had tests done, the results of which prompted her to conclude that the boy’s white blood cells were abnormally high.
Drakes was them admitted to the hospital and his family was told by the nurse who had the tests done that he would have to wait until Monday morning to see a doctor for an additional test as the test done by them could not clarify what was happening to him.
At the behest of the mother, the nurse prescribed an injection for the pain on Sunday but didn’t administer it to him. He eventually died while he was in the washroom. Up to that point, young Drakes had not seen a doctor.
Drakes’ sister, Nikita Duncan told the Sunday Stabroek via telephone that her brother spent the night through to Sunday at the WDRH. On Sunday around 2 pm, her mother went to the male ward to see her son. When she saw him, he was crying in pain. Duncan related that her mother inquired from the nurse whether they could give Drakes anything for the pain, at which point the nurse prescribed an injection for her to buy as the hospital didn’t have the medication at the time. Duncan recalled that her mother contacted her to get the injection and take it to the hospital, which she did. However, Duncan insists that the injection was never given to her brother.
The mother and sister then left the hospital as visiting hours were over and headed home.
About 1:36 am on Monday, 24th April her brother was talking to his family on his telephone from the hospital and while talking to his family over the phone, he was still crying out for pain. Duncan said they asked him if any doctor or nurse was there and he replied saying, “No, nobody didn’t give me anything.” His sister related to this newspaper that her brother said that the nurse did not give him the injection they brought for him or even pain killers. Duncan informed that they received a call from the hospital at about 4:43 am on Monday that Drakes had died.
Duncan explained that following her brother’s demise on Monday morning, a patient in the same ward related to the family that her brother had been talking on the phone that morning, when he got up from his bed to use the washroom. There was no nurse around and apparently he fell in the washroom, because when another patient went to use it, he discovered her brother’s motionless body.
The patient reportedly reached out to the nurse saying, “You guys have a patient in here and he’s not looking good.”
According to the patient, the nurse picked her brother up from the floor and placed him on the bed. Duncan added that the family was never informed of this occurrence.
Duncan is contending that the nurses were negligent as they didn’t give Drakes the care he needed when he was crying out for pain initially. She further questioned why the nurse asked them to purchase the medication for him and didn’t use it.
In addition, she said the nurses responded rudely when questions were asked relating to the pain Drakes was experiencing. She said the nurse even made the excuse that it was not her shift and she was placed there to assist because they didn’t have anyone to work the ward.
According to Duncan, her mother had asked WDRH for a referral to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) but was told that he would see a doctor on Monday morning. She noted that the persons also emphasised that if WDRH referred him to GPH, they would not admit him. So that’s why they left him there.
Duncan is calling for justice for her dead brother because as she explains it, when the post mortem examination was done she was told by the doctor that all Drakes needed was an injection, and the injection would have helped him with the pain and on Monday he would have been able to go through with the additional test he had to do. Duncan said that the doctor who did the post-mortem examination stated that they did not find any cause of death.
