Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 10, 2019 News
Even as family members, friends and colleagues mourn the death of Nurse Schenise Apple, the Ministry of Public Health has been collaborating with the Ministry of Social Protection to provide needed tangible support.
This development was vocalised by Minister of Public Health, Ms Volda Lawrence, during a staff meeting on Monday.
“The Ministry has been there from the inception. We have been dealing directly with the father [Mr. Dexton Copeland],” the Minister said. She assured that the Ministry will continue giving support to the family.”
She disclosed that her Ministry has advanced arrangements with the Social Protection Ministry for financial support for the departed nurse’s funeral arrangements.
Minister Lawrence said that since she learnt about the death of the nurse stationed at the Mahdia District Hospital, “I was in constant contact with her father. I spoke with him personally about the post mortem and other issues.”
She disclosed that she even asked the father to travel to Georgetown instead of Mahdia as he’d originally planned since arrangements were already advanced to transport the body to the capital so the family could have witnessed the post mortem at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC].
Minister Lawrence said Government pathologist, Dr. Nehaul Singh, was scheduled to conduct the autopsy to determine the cause of her death. Reports suggest that the Port Mortem report which was conducted on the remains of Nurse Schinese Apple is currently in the possession of the Police Force.
“I had detailed discussions with him [Mr. Copeland],” Minister Lawrence confirmed Monday disclosing that the Mahdia hospital also provided pictures of the dead nurse to Mr. Copeland.
Staffers of the Public Health Ministry are said to be in distress and disbelief ever since learning of the discovery of the lifeless body of 26-year-old Schenese Apple in her room at the nurses’ hostel at Mahdia, Potaro/Siparuni [Region Eight].
“The Ministry is still in shock…Her loss is devastating to the Public Health Ministry,” said Minister Lawrence at Monday’s meeting.
Reports suggest that when Apple, uncharacteristically, was a no-show for dinner, her colleagues conducted a frantic search for the well-liked female nurse. Then they made the macabre discovery of her remains in her room.
“Her loss is our loss. It really saddens the public health sector,” the Public Health Minister lamented.
When Nurse Apple was found dead last week, Dr. Chrissundra Abdool, Regional Health Officer [RHO] of Region Eight, contacted the police who launched an investigation.
Since then, the Guyana Police Force [GPF] and the Regional Health Services [RHS] under, Dr. Kay Shako, have been conducting separate investigations into the death of the young healthcare worker.
“I believe in allowing due process to take place,” Minister Lawrence said Monday, as she explained her decision to not been in the forefront making pronouncements on the tragedy.
Nevertheless, she has counselled the rest of the country’s healthcare workers not to “give up hope but build on the legacy (of Nurse Apple) and help make her proud.”
She charged the public sector workers to “continue serving to the best of your ability.”
RHS Director, Dr. Shako, also on Monday charged, especially nurses, not to “fear being deployed to the country’s interior locations to serve.”
Dr. Shako assured that the Ministry will be “more diligent when deploying nurses in the outlying Regions.”
Added to this, Dr. Shako said that in order to help ease the traumatic stress associated with the recent death, counselling sessions will be made available to all healthcare professional workers as well as other categories of workers who have been affected in any way.
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