DOCTORS SCARED

So concerned are they for their safety that doctors are demanding a beef-up of security systems at the city hospital including having a mobile police unit on the compound and a change in the company that provides security guards to serve the facility. If their demands are not met, the doctors say they will turn away all patients seeking medical care for non-essential ailments from tomorrow.

Doctors said that for far too long, they have been assaulted - both physically and emotionally - by patients, homeless persons who wander into the hospital and there have been robberies and even rapes at the institution. Members of the North West Doctors Association (NWDA), a staff association, formed to tend to the needs of doctors in the North West Regional Health Authority said that doctors decided to make a stand after an armed robbery on Sunday night involving a medical intern.

Dr Sharaz Mohammed, Vice President of NWDA said that doctors for quite some time, do not feel safe at the workplace. The Association’s secretary Dr Darren Bodkin added that something must be done to make doctors feel safer so they can continue to provide their services to the public.

The doctors are demanding that a Police post be placed in the hospital, better lighting and cameras be installed in dark and quiet areas of the hospital, and a complete overhaul of the security detail. “As physicians we have to treat people regardless of their background. It isn’t our job to judge persons on anything they may or may not have done. We can’t do so in an environment where we feel our physical safety is at risk,” a NWDA official said. Newsday understands that just before midnight on Sunday, the intern was walking toward the Lab Area when she was called out by a man who asked for directions to the Intensive Care Unit, claiming a relative was warded there.

The intern walked the man to the ICU area, some 20 metres away, when he pulled out a firearm from his waist and announced a hold-up.

The man ordered the frightened intern to walk in front of him as he placed the gun to her waist.

During the walk from the ICU area to a parking lot at the back of the hospital near the blood bank, the two walked past four empty security guard posts. No guard was seen anywhere although two companies are contracted by Government to provide 24 hour service to the hospital on a shift system.

When they reached the car part, the man proceeded to rob the woman of 300 and ordered her to “walk away and don’t look back...

or else.” He then walked out of the hospital and escaped. The woman contacted her parents who picked her up and took her to the San Juan police station where a report was made. NWDA officials lambasted security officers posted at the hospital saying that on numerous occasions, no security guard is seen in the booth. Doctors added that security guards - when they are located - are usually asleep. This was confirmed when Newsday visited the hospital yesterday and found a female security guard, in full uniform, seated on a chair near a tree on the compound so fast asleep that she was not aware a photo of her was being taken.

The security checkpoints the intern and the bandit walked past were at an elevator near the ICU, another at the back of the hospital, a third at the blood bank and a fourth at the parking lot. “We are thankful the intern was not dragged off to be raped or kidnapped.

Things could have been much worse. Look at how far they walked, look at how many checkpoints she passed and not one...

not one security guard was there,” NWDA public relations officer Dr Donna Rampersad said.

Earlier this year, a nurse at the St James infirmary was raped at that compound and last year, an orthopaedic consultant was threatened by a man brandishing a gun on one of the wards in the city hospital.

Doctors said they face being murdered when treating gunshot victims as the persons who shot the victims could very easily walk into the hospital, enter the ward and attack the victim and those attending to him/her. Doctors said security is non-existent to the point where homeless persons walk into the hospital and sleep at various points.

“We need a police presence in here because of how open the hospital is. Gunplay from gangsters is a real possibility. The guards are absent from their booths. When you make a check, instead of them going on foot patrol, they sit on chairs and sleep. Look over there, look at that security guard sleeping,” said a doctor who pointed to the woman whose head was bent to the right.

Deep, contented snoring could be heard.

Efforts by Newsday to reach Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh for a comment yesterday proved futile although CNC3 reported in its seven o’clock news last night that the minister had requested a report on the robbery of the intern.