Despite displaying a severe symptom of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and having been in direct contact with relatives of Jermaine Ifill, the man who died days after testing positive for COVID-19, Quincy Braithwaite says that health officials are refusing to test him because he has not displayed 90% of the manifestations of the disease.
Braithwaite was the brother-in-law of the late Ifill.
In a telephone interview with Stabroek News yesterday, Braithwaite revealed that he was once married to Ifill’s sister and while he had no contact with Ifill during the past month, his ex-wife and their two children did.
Braithwaite said on March 25, his ex-wife called him and told him that Ifill was sick and that they were taking him to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), so he collected his two children from Ifill’s home. On Saturday last, he said, his ex-wife called him and told him that Ifill was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Immediately, he said, he recalled the flu-like symptoms he began experiencing three days prior and thought of the fact that it had not gone away. Braithwaite said that his throat was sore and he could not swallow all the while his chest was paining. Thinking it was a regular cold, he had gone to a pharmacy and bought medication to help him.
After he was told of Ifill’s death, Braithwaite said, he decided to call the ministry hotline and told the operators that his children had been in contact with Ifill before explaining that he himself was experiencing similar symptoms but he was only told to isolate his children. “I said, ‘okay fair enough,’” Braithwaite noted.
However, yesterday morning around 12 am, Braithwaite began having difficulty breathing but brushed it off and attributed it to how he was feeling about Ifill. Half an hour later, however, Braithwaite was still struggling to breathe and around 12.45 am he decided to go to a private hospital.
There he met a doctor, who conducted a series of tests on him before x-raying him. After the tests results came back, Braithwaite noted, the doctor told him that he had a viral infection but he could not say what it was because all the tests he had done came back negative. “He said that the only thing left to test for with the symptoms that I’m getting is the coronavirus,” Braithwaite added before saying that the Doctor then called the GHPC and told them that he might have contracted COVID-19 after which he wrote a referral and advised him to go to GPHC.
Before he left, Braithwaite disclosed, he noticed that officials immediately shut down the area that he was in.
Braithwaite said he arrived at the GPHC around 3 am yesterday morning and upon arrival he was screened. He said that he related to the person who was conducting the screening how he was feeling but he was asked to walk up and down the room.
“I told him look, me ain’t able with this. I feeling like I run a long distance,” Braithwaite stated after which the person said that he understood. The health care worker then checked his referral documents and told him that COVID-10 patients usually have a couple white spots in their system but his had only three.
Regardless, the heath care worker called the person who was in charge at that time and Braithwaite said he was directed to return at 10:30 yesterday morning so he could be tested for COVID-19. He left and was scared to sleep so he kept awake and waited until it was time to go back to GPHC.
When he returned to the hospital, he said, he was still having difficulty breathing and they told him that he had to do another screening. “So I told them, ‘Another screening? For what?’ I said, ‘I was here day before yesterday after I spoke to the hotline and did the screening. Look at my condition now! …I come back and y’all did another screening and I showed them the referral letter and… y’all want to do another screening now to do what? To tell me what? I am telling you my symptoms what is going on and I’m getting worse,’” Braithwaite recalled saying.
The only response Braithwaite said he got was that “there is no cure for the corona.”
According to Braithwaite, he responded, “I just want to know what is going on with me” and was told that higher officials said he could not be tested unless he is showing 90% of the COVID-19 symptoms.
“So I said, ‘What am I going to do now?’ And he said that the only thing he can tell me is to go home and isolate myself and I said, ‘In my condition? How I am breathing and going on I must go home and isolate myself?’ And he walk away so I came home and made a video of what was going on,” Braithwaite stated.
He said the healthcare system failed him because even with all his symptoms he was not tested and the reason he was concerned is because he owns a business and he is in contact with numerous people every day. He said if indeed he is infected by COVID-19, he fears that numerous of people may have already contracted it from him as yesterday was the day that he finally decided to close his business.
“Today is the only day my business place ain’t open and nobody can’t blame me for that. The health system should be blamed for that because they failed in the first place with Jermaine Ifill because Jermaine reported it long as a professional and the same thing that they did to him is the same thing that they’re doing to me,” he lamented before saying that the test should be done so they can start contact tracing.
When he spoke to Stabroek News last night Braithwaite said that no health official had visited his home during the day but he received a call from the hotline and the operators asked him about his symptoms.
“I told them that when I came back home I started self-medicating myself but I still have symptoms and the only thing that stopped is the diarrhea because I take a Lomotil,” he stated. He added that when he told him that, they told him not to use it but he said that he doesn’t know what medication he should be using because no one is telling him anything.
As of last night, the symptoms Braithwaite said he was displaying were shortness of breath, aches and a very high fever. He disclosed that he told the operators about the worsening of his symptoms but all they told him was to take Panadol and to call them back if his conditions worsen.
Braithwaite added that his children and ex-wife are not displaying any symptoms but his ex-wife is also self-medicating. In the video he posted on Facebook, Braithwaite claimed that not one of the persons who were in direct contact with Ifill have been tested thus far.
