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| File: Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan |
The move was a reaction to the refusal of personnel in an ambulance from the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) to offer assistance to a woman who asked them to help her get her dying child to the San Fernando General Hospital.
Citing company rules, they said they were unable to assist. The SWRHA confirmed that they were following the rules.
Stacy Simon's 21-month-old baby boy, Akile Simon, died in his mother’s arms moments after she was denied help by the technicians in the ambulance.
On learning of the matter last Sunday, Khan expressed "disgust with the lack of compassion" and he pledged to take "a harsh decision with respect to the ambulance service."
He did.
On Wednesday the minister said he will change the policy to make sure that nothing prevents paramedics from stopping to help people in need so that no one in such a situation will ever again be refused medical care, regardless of the circumstances.
"An ambulance means that you have everything in there to take care of a person in need...So once you put the word ambulance on your vehicle, it has to have the basic equipment and qualified personnel. If you don't have that then they will have to call it something else," he said.
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| Stacy Simon |
Simon told reporters, "I am happy that the minister has stepped in to correct a wrong."
Now the minister has launched an investigation into another aspect of the same story, which did not get the kind of media attention as the actions of the ambulance technicians.
According to media reports Simon took her child to the Gulf View Medical Centre in San Fernando, where she was treated shabbily and in a most unprofessional manner by a doctor there.
The Express report said the doctor, who asked not to be identified, said the baby showed no signs of life so he advised Simon "to seek medical attention at the Accident and Emergency Department of the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH)."
He admitted that he knew that the child was clinically dead. "There were no signs of any activity. The pupils were dilated," the paper quoted the unnamed doctor as saying, adding that he advised the mother to take the child to the hospital although he knew the infant was dead. And according to the mother, the doctor didn't even tell her that her child was dead.
It seems from the report that the doctor was more concerned about other issues. "The patient was brought in without any warning. I was seeing another patient. No appointment. Just rushed in," he told the Express.
"Yes, I told her take him to the emergency of the San Fernando Hospital...where you need to do post-mortem, an autopsy. And that could not be handled in private settings."
Dr Khan is justified in investigating the actions of the doctor whose callous treatment of a woman and a dying child took second place to his personal concerns. His selfish attitude is contrary to what citizens should expect from doctors whether they operate in the private or public service.
It seems that the doctor was more annoyed that the woman showed up without an appointment and less concerned about the patient. He knew that the baby was dead, did not bother to tell the woman so and instead passed on his responsibility as a physician to the hospital while offering no assistance to the distraught woman.
When one doctor behaves likes this he taints the entire medical professional. Those who show such disdain for human life and suffering should be removed. I know that there are good doctors in the system. I have five nephews and nieces working in the public system as doctors are they are all very dedicated, as they should be. Dr. Khan himself has demonstrated in his professional life that his patients come first.
I urge the minister to act with the same urgency that caused him to change the ambulance rules and deal with this matter so that citizens could feel confident that those who practice medicine in Trinidad & Tobago are true to the The Hippocratic Oath, which commits them to caring for patients.
Their oath states: "I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being...I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm."
That's what every doctor pledges to do. That is what every citizen expects of a doctor, be he or she in the public service or working in a private clinic or office.
The practice of medicine is not a business in which its practitioners treat humans as commodities; it is a profession in which the care of every patient is sacred and must come first. Those who fail to do this do not deserve to be doctors. And in a just and fair society, they should be removed with dispatch.
Jai Parasram | 05 February 2012
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