EHS, Gulf View Med blame each other

THE Emergency Health Service (EHS) management has denied its ambulance did not have the necessary equipment to resuscitate Dr Deepak Mahabir and yesterday laid the blame squarely on an ambulance and crew from a private nursing home. However, the EHS claims were strongly denied yesterday by management of Gulf View Med, who in turn accused the EHS of being “untruthful” in assessing what occurred at Dr Mahabir’s Bel Air Gardens, La Romaine home, when he suffered an asthmatic attack and subsequently died on Friday. In a press release issued yesterday, EHS disclosed that when its medical technicians arrived in their ambulance at Dr Mahabir’s home around 2 am, a private nursing home ambulance was already there. Two ambulances responded to the call at 1 am.

However, Dr Mahabir’s wife, Dr Sinanan-Mahabir, complained that the crew in the EHS ambulance did not respond when she called on them to resuscitate her husband with the appropriate oxygen life-saving equipment. A Gulf View Med ambulance transported Dr Mahabir to the Gulf View Med nursing home. The issue arose yesterday about which of the two ambulances arrived first at Mahabir’s home, and who attended to him. Dr David Ali, director of Gulf View Med, denied that his nursing home’s ambulance arrived first at Dr Mahabir’s home. “When our ambulance got there the EHS was already on the scene,” Dr Ali said. However, the EHS’ release which had the name of manager (operations) Joanne Salazar, stated. “EHS was on the scene but arrived after the crew of the private provider. EHS’s role was restricted to assisting the staff from the private ambulance service, to lift the patient (Dr Mahabir) and place him in the ambulance (private) after which the (EHS) ambulance departed.” Sinanan-Mahabir told Newsday when she called on EHS technicians to provide the necessary breathing apparatus, they could not because, at the time, there was none in the ambulance.

The EHS release stated that Mahabir-Sinanan’s observation about the ambulance crew’s ability to use appropriate equipment on the ambulance transporting her husband, “are in fact observation about the crew of the private provider.” The release stated that all EHS ambulances carried non-rebreathers (apparatus use for pumping oxygen) as a standard item of equipment and its staff is fully trained to use them. But Dr Ali described the EHS release as totally wrong, saying his nursing home was equipped with a new ambulance which was “fully equipped.” “Our ambulance has an AMBU bag (rubber inflated apparatus for pumping oxygen into someone who is not breathing); oxygen tank, drips and endotricheal tubes. In each ambulance there is a nurse trained to use the equipment,” Dr Ali said.

Reiterating that when the nursing home’s ambulance arrived the EHS crew was already at Mahabir’s home, Dr Ali said that when Dr Mahabir arrived at the nursing home, “he was fully hooked up to all life-saving devices.” Following a private funeral service at Dr Mahabir’s home yesterday at 10 am, the body was taken to the Shore of  Peace, Mosquito Creek, for cremation according to Hindu rites. Dr Mahabir was supposed to have taken over from Dr Austin Trinidade as Medical Chief of Staff at the San Fernando General Hospital on Monday. Dr Trinidade, who was supposed to have gone on some 15 months leave, has been asked by the Health Ministry to stay on until a suitable replacement is found.