Exactly six weeks and a day after being rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) with a broken leg, Charles Flavius was yesterday finally able to undergo corrective surgery.
Having been admitted as a patient on Tuesday, January 8th, at the West Demerara Regional Hospital Flavius, Flavius was originally scheduled to undergo surgery on Wednesday, January 9th. Due to difficulties at the hospital, however, he was unable to do so.
Yesterday, though in pain, Flavius related to Stabroek News that he was finally able to go under the knife.
On November 28th, 2018, after he was involved in a motorcycle accident along the East Bank Demerara roadway, Flavius, a father of three, suffered injuries to his right leg, just above his ankle. He was rushed immediately to the GPH and taken into the emergency unit.
Shortly after arriving in the emergency room, Flavius said he was seen by a doctor who took blood samples, an x-ray of his leg and later informed him that they would have to put his foot in a cast.
The doctor also told Flavius that he would have to go to the clinic for a checkup some days after. It was during his visit to the clinic at GPH on December 12th, 2018, exactly two weeks after the accident, that he heard surprising news.
Flavius, with his foot still in a cast, learnt from another doctor that he would need to have surgery performed on his leg. This, the injured man said, came as a surprise to him since nothing of the sort was related to him by the doctor who examined him when he first arrived at the hospital.
He was then sent to another doctor to fix a date for the surgery. Flavius was given January 9th, 2019, but the doctor informed him that there had to be openings in case of emergencies.
This angered the now confused man, who was prompted to ask the doctor, “On November 28, 2018 when I came to the hospital with my leg dangling, wasn’t that an emergency?” But his question yielded no response, he said.
Flavius then sought to have his case transferred to the West Demerara Regional Hospital in the hope of having an early date for surgery. However, since the transfer, he was placed on a lengthy waiting list. The man said that a glimmer of hope came when his wife visited the hospital and was informed that efforts would be made to have the surgery performed.
