Minister Ramsammy you are wrong

Up until now, I personally have refused to take shots at the Agri Ministry and OP for its handling of the flood crisis and I will continue to do so until it has passed. However, learning that the first person to die from suspected leptospirosis is an elderly woman has ticked me off. No one should be allowed to die from such a preventable and treatable disease and if it happens again, blame should land squarely at the feet of the health ministry.

The death of the woman is stirring, but the health minister seeking to cast blame elsewhere is totally amazing. Hellbent on not owning up to a late response by his ministry to flood affected zones, he swiftly and recklessly suggested that the woman was in a bad state when she was transferred from a private hospital into the public system.

Two things are happening here. Firstly, the woman's death only confirms that when one needs to die, they check in at the GPHC. Secondly, Minister Ramsammy is crude and heartless for taking a cheap shot at the private hospital by suggesting without stating that the woman might have been alive had she been brought firstly to the GPHC.

This is totally amazing. However, I would like to remind the minister that it was his ministry that neglected scores of people in the flood hit communities. Since the flooding commenced, teams should have been sent to the communities with health kits and antibiotics. Your Ministry should have made it mandatory for the citizenry to take treatment. Minister Ramsammy, you have failed to act with the vision of a leader that this crisis demands. Sir, you can blame the private hospital all you want, but had you moved sooner to educate and protect, the woman would have been alive today and would not have even been admitted to any hospital in the first place.


SN Reports: One of the two persons suspected to have the bacterial disease leptospirosis has since passed away at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) but according to Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy the person was not from one of the flood-affected areas.

Dr Ramsammy said the 65-year-old woman was from the East Bank Demerara and she died on Saturday afternoon. It is yet to be confirmed if she was indeed stricken with the disease.

Meanwhile, the health minister said that his medical team on the flood-hit East Coast yesterday sent one person to be monitored at the hospital even though he said the person “is not very sick and only has some fever.” He said they are continuing to monitor the flood-affected areas and are cautioning persons to be careful and to take all the necessary precautions.

Dr Ramsammy said that the other person hospitalised at the GPHC is in a stable condition and out of danger. He said that the woman who died was first admitted to a private hospital and it was only after her condition deteriorated and the hospital could do nothing for her that she was transferred to the GPHC in a very “low condition.”