By: Shemar Alleyne
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has once again been accused by family members of one of the country’s COVID-19 deaths of infecting her with the deadly virus after she visited the health institution.
Sabra Basir, 77, a Justice of Peace, of Hampton Court, Region Two (Pomeroon – Supenaam), passed away on November 3 while receiving medical care in the GPHC’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
During an exclusive interview with Guyana Standard, the woman’s son, Andrieko Basir, explained that his mother was a cancer patient for the last six years.
He added that recently, they found out that the cancer was taking over her lungs, liver, and spine, and she had completed eight out of her ten sessions of radiation.
The grieving son said that his mother began developing breathing problems, which were coupled with shortness of breath.
As a result, the devastated son took his mother to the Woodlands Hospital on October 28, 2020, but because of the shortness of breath, the hospital referred him to GPHC.
“We are of the opinion that this contamination was caused by the hospital because my observation when we took her for the screening, she was placed in the transitional ward, and in that room, I observed certain protocols were breached by the medical personnel. Doctors were dressed with their PPE, and they are treating other patients with those same PPE. They were not changing it.”
However, on November 3, the young man was informed by medical officials that his mother died as a result of COVID-19.
Andrieko said that immediately after finding out that his mother was a COVID-19 fatality, he and his wife, along with persons who transported her to the hospital, did a covid-19 test, which returned as negative.
“I started tracking because I was the person with her; I was fetching her from the house where we were, and I had two helpers with me, along with my wife after which, all of us had a test, and all four of us tested negative,” Andrieko said.
The grieving man is contending that “She (his mother) could have lived a couple more months, and that was the opinion of the doctor also. She was receiving treatment and responding positively,” he explained while adding that his mother was responding positively to radiation.
On the same day, Sabra died, 92-year-old Moses Nelson of Bacassa – Haimacabra, Region One (Barima – Waini), died while receiving medical attention at the GPHC.
