Staff strike over security
By Cathy Wilson
A nurse was on Wednesday night attacked and raped by an armed man at the Upper Demerara Hospital at Wismar, while her colleague was forced to watch.
Yesterday nurses in the mining town resorted to strike action to protest the lack of adequate security at hospitals there.
According to reports, two armed men made their way into the hospital, forced the two nurses who were on duty into an empty ward at the back and ordered them both to strip naked. One man stood guard outside the ward, while the other raped one of the nurses, forcing the second nurse to look on.
The father of the victim told this newspaper that his daughter said she and the other nurse on duty were in the casualty unit when they heard a knock on the door. The nurses would have opened the door believing that it was someone who was ill.
“She related to me that they come and knock at the door,” the father said. “The persons outside had something they had covered up like a gun…she didn’t get fuh identify what it was, and they say take off all the things yah all have on. It was their jewellery and accessories and so on….”
The two nurses were then led to a ward to the back of the hospital by the armed men who ordered them to remove their clothes. In the process of taking their clothes off, the father said, his daughter decided to talk to them. She related that one said, “I didn’t come here to mek luv! I’ll bust up yah all head yeh!”
The father said the nurse then asked, “where is your condom?” And the man responded, “dis is not a love affair.”
The incident resulted in staff of both the Upper Demerara Hospital at Wismar and the Linden Hospital Complex at Mackenzie resorting to strike action yesterday morning. Colleagues of the affected nurses said that they have been constantly pleading with the hospitals’ administration on safety and security issues to no avail.
The striking nurses carried placards which read: “Who cares for the caregivers”, “Change working hours or no work”, “Nurses need to be transported to their home gate”, among others.
The Upper Demerara Hospital administration, led by CEO Gordon Gumbs and Administrator Trevor Vangendren summoned the nurses to an emergency meeting. It was at that forum that the victim, before breaking down into tears, told the large gathering that after the incident she and her colleague ran to the gate of the hospital where a female security officer was resting comfortably. “Although we were looking so ragged the guard didn’t take us serious,” she said. “Imagine we ran back into the hospital and called for our relatives. Would you believe our relatives and the police got here before the guard realized that something was really wrong and decided to come in?”
In an interview, Gumbs said that on learning of the incident he immediately made contact with the Ministry of Health and has since been in frequent communication with Minister within the Ministry Dr Bheri Ramsaran. He said the administration was currently reviewing the security of the hospitals and the nurses and would be implementing some improved measures within the next week.
In the interim, all night shifts at the Upper Demerara Hospital have been suspended and all in-patient care is being done at the Linden Hospital Complex at Mackenzie.
A visitor to the hospital yesterday said tensions were very high and nurses had posted notices that the hospital was out of operation for the day. However, the notices were all removed following intervention by the administration.
This newspaper was told that the police are investigating the matter and are following leads to a suspect believed to be the same person who raped a female security guard in the Christianburg area a few weeks ago.
