Unbecoming of Mahdia people: Minister in response to hospital invasion

Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence has expressed concern with the manner in which residents of Mahdia conducted themselves Thursday night as a group of people invaded the regional hospital there after a feud between two men ended in one succumbing to his injuries.

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The development saw hospital windows being smashed, persons entering the hospital through windows and forcing their way into the wards and threatening health workers. They claimed that the police, health ministry and regional health officials deliberately left the victim to die by not transferring him to Georgetown via way of a medivac.

The claims were however debunked by Minister of Public Health who traveled to the area Friday morning with her Permanent Secretary, Head of Regional Health Services and Chief Nursing Officer.

“We were working together as a team to be able to get a plane into there to medivac the young man out of there. Unfortunately, there were many, many elements that were coming together, we had a plane but we did not have two pilots to fly into that area at that time and also the weather did not permit them to fly, they could not see the mountains from Mahdia and as you know that is a very dangerous area to flight I the night and so the pilots felt that if they could not see the mountains then they would not leave, eventually the young man passed”

She said the behavior of the people of Mahdia was unbecoming and stressed that medical facilities are off-limits to those things as they could have caused the demise of other patients who were seeking medical attention or who were within the hospital.

It was also noted that invading the facility was also made easier as a gate that fell off from the entrance to the facility a while now was never replaced and Minister Lawrence is of the view that it should have been fixed a while now.

Minister Lawrence also knocked the Guyana Police Force for its handling of the situation as she believes that certain steps should have been taken in order to ensure the safety of the staff and other patients at the health facility.

“This incident in our minds could have been averted had persons taken the necessary steps. I believe that the police should have removed all persons who had nothing to do with the victim, all of the other persons should have been removed from the health compound and allow the medical staff to do their work” Minister Lawrence noted

Relatives on Thursday accused the police, health workers and ministry officials of attempted to cover up the fact that the police shot the man hence they failed to provide the required medivac service to him have received advance medical attention in Georgetown. Minister Lawrence who said she met with the relatives of the now dead man and indicated to them what the challenges were on the night in question.

Earlier a minibus driver and miner of the community were involved in an altercation which resulted in the miner chopping the bus driver. During the exchange, a police rank who was in the area reportedly attempted to defuse the situation by attempting to fire a shot to the foot of the cutlass wielding miner but he had already inflicted a chop wound to the neck of the miner.

It is being stated that at the same time the policeman fired the gun, the was the same time the bus driver fell as a result of the chop he had seconds before received and the bullet which missed the feet of his attacker struck him to the upper shoulder. That policeman has since been placed under close arrest.

A post-mortem would determine if the man died a result of or either both; the gunshot wound and chop wound. We were also told that he was bleeding heavily from both wounds