Student nurse assaulted at gunpoint

A STUDENT nurse was indecently assaulted at gunpoint at the Nurses’ Hostel of the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) in the wee hours of Sunday morning, police sources told Newsday yesterday.

The latest development has left hospital authorities clamouring for additional security since it is felt something worse could happen. Preliminary reports on the indecent assault are that around 3 am, the 30-year-old student nurse was asleep at Block E when she was awakened by a masked man, armed with a firearm. A report was later made and a party of officers from the Belmont Police Station visited the scene and conducted investigations. The student nurse was also interviewed yesterday. Chief of Security at the North West Regional Authority Kenneth Doldron and the authority’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Lennard Jaggessar both confirmed an incident at the Nurses’ Hostel.

Jaggessar said he was awaiting a full report from Doldron, who said via telephone that they have since instituted security officers to “heavily concentrate” on the area and that the matter was being thoroughly investigated by the police. Neither men could say where the assailant gained access, but hospital sources told Newsday that the armed and masked man did not enter through the main entrance since the area was fully covered by security officers. Sources said a nurse, who was studying, saw someone coming from an area where there is a hole in the fence on the eastern side of the hospital. She did not pay it any mind because sources alleged student nurses, usually “dance around the system” by having male visitors at the institution after the allowed time of 10 pm. Sources also said that the security efforts are hampered since there is a lot of covering up. 

Newsday also learned that the authority has several reports of “boyfriends fighting with boyfriends” at the hospital.  One man was reportedly arrested as a consequence. “These are some of the matters that we have to constantly investigate and the authority is spending a lot of money on a regular basis,” one source told Newsday. Hospital sources also referred to the December 1, 2001 incident where a man was gunned down by a group of men in Ward 51 at the city hospital. Saying that many years ago, hospitals and churches were considered to be sanctuaries, sources said since the December incident, they were preparing for an increase in violence at the hospital. “We are extremely concerned especially when guns are used.  We need stiffer penalties for gun crimes.” No arrests had been made up to late yesterday and PC Baksh of the Belmont Police Station is continuing investigations.