Although William Goodasaul was “officially” discharged last November, he remains bedridden at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) and desperately wants to leave.
Goodasaul, 46, was admitted to the hospital after he was struck by a vehicle while he was asleep on a city pavement. The accident left him paralysed.
Before the accident, Goodasaul made his home on the streets. He said he worked as a labourer during the day and would sleep wherever he found a comfortable place to rest in the night.
However, although he was offered a bed and is being sheltered at the GPH, where he is also being served meals daily, Goodasaul badly wants to leave the hospital.
“Look brother, in here ain’ easy…although I can’t walk, I gotto look after myself and nobody listening to me,” Goodasaul told Stabroek News.
The distressed man said he was scheduled for a clinic visit in December last at the hospital, but his niece, who often visits him, misplaced his clinic card. As a result, he missed the appointment.
“Look how long I miss my clinic date and nobody doing nothing about it, although I telling the doctors and nurses, nobody doing anything about it,” Goodasaul said, adding that he is interested in being accepted at a shelter, where he could be cared for.
When Stabroek News asked a nurse at the hospital if the institution was aware of Goodasaul’s request and concerns, she said a social worker was working with him and that he would be sent to a home but it will take time. “It got plenty like him in here and it got to go through a process and it takes time,” the nurse said.
Meanwhile, when Goodasaul’s niece was contacted, she said she spoke with a social worker from the hospital who was helping her to get her uncle accepted at the Palms Geriatric home. However, the Palms refused to accept him on the grounds that he was too young. In addition, Goodasaul was known as a drug user before his admission to the hospital.
The man’s niece said she is the only relative who has any interest in caring for him and she has added a room to her house to accommodate him. However, there is still work to be done on it and she is unable to accept him at present.
In addition, the woman said she works and therefore would not be able to care for Goodasaul unless she employs someone to do so, which she cannot afford. If there is any home that is willing to accept her uncle, the woman said that she will be willing to offer any form of assistance to care for him.
Meanwhile, Goodasaul is upset that the driver who is responsible for his paralysis is still at large.
Goodasaul recalled that he was sleeping on the pavement on Main Street in November last year when the vehicle crashed into him. He said he was told by his doctor that he had sustained spinal injuries.
The man said that he wasn’t able to collect the name of the driver or the registration number of the vehicle, but after the accident the driver made a phone call following which a car came and transported him to the hospital.
Because he has been incapacitated, Goodasaul said that he has been unable to pursue the matter. However, he believes that the perpetrator could have been apprehended if the police were doing a thorough investigation because the driver who hit him was in the car that transported him to the hospital and the registration number of the vehicle may have been recorded by the police at the hospital outpost. However, he was not certain if that was done.
