Family slams shabby hospital treatment

“She looks like she is sleeping,” many mourners commented, as they paid their last respects to Sooknanan, 25, who died after suffering internal injuries in a car accident on Easter Sunday at Manzanilla.

The anguish her family and friends felt for her death was still evident as they expressed disgust about the long time it took for an Emergency Health Services (EHS) ambulance to arrive at the crash site. The shabby treatment from medical personnel at the Sangre Grande Hospital also left a sour taste.

Family spokesman Prakash Ramlogan told Newsday that doctors at the the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where Sooknanan was pronounced dead after being transferred there, told relatives she could have survived if she had received prompt treatment.

Sooknanan was in the front passenger seat of a jeep driven by her boyfriend Navin Hosein. They collided with a Land Rover, driven by a 32-year-old man of La Romaine, near San Fernando.

Sooknanan was pitched out of the jeep and landed on the roadway.

Sooknanan, Ramlogan said, lay on the ground writhing in pain for one hour before an ambulance arrived, after being sent from Chaguanas, and took her to the hospital.