An Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam man is now hospitalised in a serious condition after he was chopped and beaten about the body during a robbery at his home yesterday morning.
Rhonnie Anthony Juman, 33, of Lot 450 Angoy’s Avenue, was chopped 12 times in his head and beaten about his body. He also suffered a suspected fractured skull, lacerations to his shoulder and a broken jaw, and is currently hospitalised at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
His mother, Bibi Shameela Ali, told Stabroek News that two bandits, armed with a cutlass and crowbar, invaded her home at around 2 am yesterday. She said the men immediately started to assault the family and demanded cash.
After the bandits escaped, Juman was rushed to the New Amsterdam Public Hospital at around 2:15 am, where Ali was told that her son also suffered a suspected fractured skull, lacerations to his shoulder and a broken jaw.
Stabroek News spoke to the woman minutes after midday yesterday and she broke into tears while explaining that Juman was not receiving proper treatment. She said that her son, who was bleeding from his nose and ears, was placed on a bed in the hospital’s emergency unit to wait on a surgical doctor. “Me don’t know if he come unto now,” she said.
Additionally, Ali was told that the hospital’s x-ray machine was not functioning and doctors needed an x-ray to be done in order to move ahead. She said she was advised to go to a private institution on the Corentyne to get it done and return.
However, the woman said at that time, she did not have the finances as she had just been robbed. She pleaded with the doctors to transfer her son to the GPH where all the machines are supposedly functioning. “The doctor tell me when he get critical then he will transfer him,” she related.
Ali confirmed twice to this newspaper that that was what was said to her. “He [the doctor] hag me up bad when he deh asking things,” she claimed.
However, Ali said, one female doctor spoke kindly to her. “She say she don’t know why them ain’t transfer he yet.”
After hours of waiting for treatment and realising that her son had lost consciousness, Ali and her relatives came together yesterday afternoon and self-discharged Juman and rushed him to the GPH themselves. Ali said that she had asked whether an ambulance could take her son to the city hospital but this was denied. According to her, doctors kept telling her that they need to monitor the situation but she was afraid that without treatment, her son would not survive.
Meanwhile, Ali could not say what was stolen from her as she had not returned home since the robbery. She explained that Juman, who works at a supermarket in New Amsterdam, was the sole breadwinner in the house. He also financed her husband’s dialysis treatment which is being done at a private institution, she said.
