Two technicians, a female employed with the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) and a male with the Georgetown Public Hospital lab, suffered injuries around 1.30 am yesterday at the NBTS, at the hands of a male acquaintance of the woman.
Stabroek News understands that both technicians had to be treated for lacerations at the hospital and have since been sent on leave.
According to reports reaching this newspaper, around 1.30 am yesterday, the assailant entered the blood bank building and found the woman in the staff room, which is equipped with beds.
The male lab worker was there as well. The NBTS operates on a 24-hour basis and a technician always has to be on call. The beds are provided for them to rest while they wait.
It is not clear under what circumstances the assailant found the man and the woman, but from reports he became annoyed at the presence of the man and proceeded to beat him, drawing blood. He also caused injury to the woman.
Contacted yesterday, Director of the NBTS Dr Clement Mc Ewan confirmed the incident but said he had no details as he had not yet spoken to either his employee or the hospital’s technician. He said it was understood that the assailant had visited the location before when the woman was on duty.
Asked about security arrangements at the NBTS, Mc Ewan said the hospital had two guards: one at the gate of the blood bank and another in the area. He recalled that only about a month back he had cause to have discussions with his staff about security arrangements since at night, on many occasions, only the technician on call was in the building and a female employee had raised the issue.
He said it was pointed out that one could not always depend on security guards as they might fall asleep sometimes and as such it was decided that after a certain hour at night, the doors of the blood bank would be closed. Should a nurse or someone else from the hospital have cause to visit the blood bank they would then press a buzzer alerting the person on duty to their presence.
Dr Mc Ewan said he did not want to speculate on what happened yesterday morning but pointed out that since the female’s acquaintance would have visited before he may have known how to access the building or maybe the doors were not locked at that time. He also said that he would not speculate on why the laboratory technician was there, since it was not unusual for a nurse or a technician from the hospital to visit the blood bank during the night.
