“I know they have met and they have decided, my Chief Medical Officer is there so he tells me, but I can’t respond until I formally get from the Medical Council what their recommendation is and I haven’t received that,” Ramsammy told Stabroek News yesterday. He added, “They have not officially written to me and therefore I can’t respond because what if I respond to you what I have heard they decided and tomorrow morning they decide to write me with a different thing altogether. So that is my position right now, I am waiting and I ask everyday….”
The minister returned the report originally sent to him by the council in January, asking them further questions.
Stabroek News understands that while the council had earlier this year recommended that the doctor be suspended for two months, it has since rescinded that decision and recommended that he receive a mere warning. It was further recommended that the doctor be removed as the police surgeon.
Recently, Ramsammy disclosed that he had sent back the initial recommendation made by the council and requested more information. He noted that the doctor was placed in a position where he was “damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.” At that time the minister had said the doctor only had two options before him and whichever one he had taken he would have been criticised. “What is going through my head is one, the doctor was not part of any torture,” the minister had said.
According to Section 17 (3) (b) of the Medical Practitioners Act of Guyana, if the council finds a doctor guilty of malpractice it can suspend his registration for such a period “as may be determined by the council and approved by the minister.” It was noted that while the minister could extend or reduce the recommended time of suspension, the act does not authorise him to change the council’s recommendation of suspension.
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 criticised 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.
