Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 02, 2009 News
– Wife mulls legal action
By Mondale Smith
“All we wanted to do was start a family and the doctor gave the assurance that the procedure was a simple 15 minutes surgery with no risks. Now after paying $201,000 my healthy husband is dead. I have no husband and no children either.”
This was the pained expression of 25-year-old school teacher Kimell Parris of 1228 ‘B’ Field, Pattensen, East Coast Demerara yesterday as she mourned the death of 34-year-old John Parris. The two celebrated their first wedding anniversary in July and had planned starting a family however her husband suffered with Vericocele; an abnormal enlargement of the vein situated in the scrotum that drains the testicles and this required a Varicocelectomy.
“We did our research and consulted with the doctor at a private hospital and were told that all he needed was a simple procedure done in about 15 minutes and then we would be able to make children, so we made plans,” the widow said.
So enthused was the couple about the idea of starting a family of their own that they took out a bank loan to facilitate the surgery and last Saturday at about 07:00hrs, the husband checked in to the hospital.
However, the procedure that was to have lasted 15 minutes took more than an hour but they were happy nonetheless that he was discharged with a packet of pain killers for medication.
“The pain in his abdomen was too much for him on Saturday night so we went back to the hospital and they give him some drips an injection and sent us home with three other tablets,” Kimell recalled.
The wife said her husband’s pains got worse and on Sunday they rushed him back to the hospital where he was admitted for observation and “the doctor press he stomach and said he got gas and as soon as he is able to pass wind he will be okay”.
The wife went home and returned to the institution at 06:00hrs on Monday. She recalled that “He tell me that they give he drips and he vomited three times but he was experiencing shortage of breath and the people at the hospital said he would be okay.”
She went home but was summoned back to the hospital less than an hour after she had left the institution. Her husband had stopped breathing and the nurses on watch did not notice this until they were alerted by a visiting friend. “They said he was resting.”
The ailing man was placed on a heart monitor with an oxygen mask in the Intensive Care Unit of the institution. She recalled that the doctor summoned her family and said he might need to go back into her husband’s body in the area where the incision was made earlier and they did not object to it.
Minutes later, the wife said, the doctor rescinded after an ultra sound revealed that there was no visible internal problem.
As time elapsed they noticed that the man’s stomach started bloating and they alerted the nurses who summoned the doctor but the wife estimates that the doctor arrived more than an hour later.
When the doctor arrived the man had stopped breathing on his own and a decision was made to cut open the wound.
“God knows when the doctor open it the smell was really stink and he took he back into theatre immediately to operate”. She said about an hour after the surgery began the doctor came to the door and told her “teach I find the problem and I have rectified it.”
What the doctor had discovered was that the man had developed diverticulum; a pouch formed in the intestine which develops from the weakness in the wall of the intestine as a result of inadequate movement of digested food.
“He said it like a cherry and one had popped so he said he was going to take out my husband’s bowels and insert a bag and that he would be taken back to the ICU to recover,” Kimell Parris recounted
But that was not to be, as mere minutes later, the woman said she watched as the doctor packed his bag and walked past her family without saying a word about her husband’s health.
“We suspected that something was wrong but no one was saying anything until my aunt who is a nurse at another hospital came and told us that he had died.”
She dubbed her husband’s death as unexplained and is of the opinion that he would not have died had the doctor been more careful and attentive.
“This is negligence and I want the medical board to investigate this matter because aside from that small surgery my husband did not have any other medical problem. I’m also thinking of suing because the doctor has not spoken to us since to tell us anything at all.”
“We had dreams of having children and now I’ve lost him due to negligence.”
John Parris was a taxi driver with the Bayridge taxi service and was a former employee of GPL and Banks DIH.
When this publication contacted the hospital’s administrator he dubbed the death as “unfortunate” and said that it is against the protocol of the hospital to give explanations on any doctor’s behalf. “He (the doctor) has to explain these things to the family.” Yesterday, too, the administrator said no investigation has been launched and he could not say if an investigation will be launched from the hospital’s end.
Speaking generally, he said “many patients visit the hospital for surgery and have success stories, however some unfortunately die, but I can say that our doctors always do their best.”
Regarding deaths at the institution he said in some cases the patients can do a query through the Ministry of Health and can take legal action, if necessary, against the parties involved.
The administrator, who has been at the hospital for in excess of three years, said the doctor has never had any issues of this nature before.
He could not give the doctor’s number for further queries but said that he is a urologist who deals with the study and treatment of disorders of the urinary tract in women and the urogenital system in men at the institution. The doctor also specialises in stomach-related illnesses. The hospital administrator also said in a case of this nature it is out of the hospital’s jurisdiction and that the doctor will have to deal with this directly.
The dead man’s relatives reported yesterday that following a meeting with management staff there has been a waiver of the other half of the bill totalling in excess of $200,000.
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