The WPA said the minister’s non-action appears to be “another in the series of endless cover-ups and protection of persons who are seemingly part of the PPP network of evil doers in society.”
But Ramsammy said on Friday that the doctor was placed in a position where he was “damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.”
It has been over a month since the council sent its recommendation to the minister which was to suspend Dr Chand, who has been the police surgeon for a number of years, but the minister said he has since asked the council a few questions and is awaiting its answers at the next sitting.
In a press release the WPA said the latest comments by the minister to the press that he has to verify whether the doctor may have breached certain rules are, “a travesty of justice”.
The party said it noted that notwithstanding the doctor’s handling of the teen demonstrated grave disregard for the Hippocratic oath and warranted the application of the most serious penalty which can be meted out to him “i.e. removal of his name from the register of medical practitioners in Guyana,” the council slapped him on the wrist and suspended him for two months.
“Ramsammy, to all indications, is not prepared to sanction even this soft sentence and is delaying for as long as possible the announcement of his non-acceptance of the Medical Council’s decision,” the party said.
Referring to the minister’s statement – “I need to make a decision and I am not going to make it based on press reports. This is somebody’s life and I must understand the real issues”- the party said that it is a clear indication he is searching for a way out from acting and at the same time shows no sympathy for the teenager.
“WPA condemns this latest brazen attitude of Minister Ramsammy. The party believes that the time has come when Guyanese must lift their collective voices and demand justice for [the teenager] while calling at the same time for Ramsammy’s removal from office.”
‘Options’
Meanwhile, Ramsammy said on Friday that the doctor only had two options before him and whichever one he had taken he would have been criticized.
“What is going through my head is one, the doctor was not part of any torture… the doctor was placed in a position that he had two options… One to walk away, remember the doctor took a Hippocratic oath of doing no harm because he did ask them to take off the bag [but the police refused],” the minister said.
The minister said one of the options the doctor had was to walk away and “in which case we would have all sacrificed him because we would have said he should have taken care of the boy because that is his job. ‘Do no harm’ that is his Hippocratic oath.”
The second option he had was to treat the patient, which he did and made a prescription and referred him, the minister said.
“So if those were his only two options he was damned if he did or damned if he didn’t,” the minister concluded.
“What I want to know from whomever, the medical council, I have asked them questions, what is any other possible options he had because maybe there was another option but right now I am only seeing two options and any doctor you would have put in the position would have ended up in trouble,” the minister said.
“Unless there is another option I can’t really blame the doctor, but I am not making the judgment I want somebody to tell me what other option… I am really at a point I am not certain anymore, you know when I first read the case I was as appalled as anybody else. I remain appalled but I am not quite sure if the doctor had a choice,” the minister said.
The teen, who was a suspect in the murder of former Region Three Vice-Chairman Ramenauth Bisram, was hospitalised for a number of days and was later released into the custody of his parents following his torture late last year.
Three policemen have since been charged with unlawfully wounding the child, as well as in connection with the beatings meted out to two other men who were being investigated for the same murder.
Dr Chand’s treatment of the boy has been severely criticized by many, including the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), which accused him of ignoring the abuse of the boy and it called for him to be relieved of duties in the police force and prison service.
Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Alli-Hack had also criticized the doctor for administering treatment to the child while he had a bag over his head and said she would have sent a report to the council to investigate the doctor.
Meanwhile, the WPA also called for the ‘Stamp it Out’ legislation to be passed in Parliament as the failure to do so encourages the ongoing brutalization of children.
