Forensic Pathologist Dr Vivekanand Brijmohan is no longer with the Ministry of Public Health as his services were terminated over a week ago.
Dr Brijmohan, who has operated mostly in Berbice for many years now, yesterday told Stabroek News that two Mondays ago, he was contacted to uplift a letter from the ministry. He said that after reading the letter, he discovered that it was actually his termination letter although his contract would not have been up for a year and a half.
Reasons for his firing were not listed in the letter. However, he said, the letter did take him by surprise but he remained quiet since that is the type of person he is.
Jevaughn Stephens, the Director of Health Services in Region Six, yesterday said, “Dr Brijmohan is no longer with us in the region; its either his contract has not been renewed or terminated.”
He added that Dr Nehaul Singh would be carrying out post-mortem examina-tions until another patholo-gist is assigned to the region.
In an effort to ascertain the reasons behind the sudden termination of Dr Brijmohan’s services, Stabroek News attempted to contact Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, Collette Adams, but was told that she would be in a meeting for the rest of the day.
Additionally, Stabroek News was told that Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud was unavailable to speak when his office was contacted yesterday. Calls to his cell phone went unanswered.
Dr Brijmohan related that he returned to Guyana to work in 1978. However, while operating a private practice, he would venture out of the country to further his studies. He said that he has provided his services to Region Six continuously since 1993 and has done close to 15,000 autopsies.
The pathologist said that recent articles, which claimed that he had left a corpse in the middle of an autopsy in Berbice after an incident with the police in March, was a distasteful attempt to tarnish his name. He explained that he was verbally threatened by relatives which forced him to leave.
He recalled that while leaving, he was contacted by Commander of B Division, Paul Langevine, who told him that the matter would be worked out. However, he said, he refused to return due to the severity of the threats.
Additionally, he said, the matter in which he was arrested after he failed to testify in a murder trial in the High Court in Georgetown in 2015, was dealt with. He said that an apology was offered to him.
Meanwhile, Zamal Hussain, the Chairman of the region’s Health Committee, had raised concerns about the need for more pathologists in the region at a recent statutory meeting. “Now I’m hearing that the man get fired. Is a serious issue because this can cause serious concerns for persons who have to do post mortem for the deceased,” Hussain told reporters yesterday.
According to him, at one time he personally had to pay to have the body of a relative transported to the West Coast of Berbice from the New Amsterdam Public Hospital and then returned, in order to have an autopsy done. “We got to look at it in an angle whereby we got to get people before we fire people,” he said.
Hussain added that if there were any issues, then there should have been systems in place to disci-pline Dr Brijmohan “instead of getting rid of him.”
“We will create a situation now,” he said.
