The family of the latest COVID-19 fatality, a sixty-nine-year-old woman who died on Saturday while in isolation at the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) have since alleged that she contracted the virus while she was a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The dead woman has since been identified as Geerjaidai Jagnaraine of Lot 408 Seventh Field, Cummings Lodge.
Jagnaraine’s family is the second to have made claims that their relative contracted the virus while a patient at the GPH.
GPH public relations officer, Chelauna Providence yesterday denied this. Providence said that after Jagnaraine was admitted to the hospital on the evening of Tuesday, June 30 she was found to be positive within a matter of two days of arriving at the hospital and that it was not possible for the woman to have been infected at the institution.
According to Jagnaraine’s son, Prahalad, his mother has for the last four years suffered from a heart condition following a stroke resulting in her having episodes of shortness of breath whenever she was out of medication. The stroke also affected her speech.
Prahalad noted that on Monday, June 29th his mother began complaining of feeling unwell and by the following day her condition had worsened and she complained of not being able to breathe. Jagnaraine arrived at the GPH around 6 pm on June 30th.
The deceased’s daughter, Hemrajie, who accompanied her to the hospital recounted that upon arrival, screening was done for both of them. “Everything was okay. She didn’t have no fever. I see they (the nurses) check her heartbeat two times so I ask them what happen and they said she had a [heart palpitation]. Anyway they tell me I got to come out and they send me till outside of the gate. I tell them mommy can’t talk for she self and I explain what does happen when she come off her medications. They tell me that she heartbeat fast and that they gon monitor her until she recover and either they send she home or they put her in the ward but they said I still got to go out of the hospital [compound]. I stand up till where the street at and the guard wasn’t allowing me to go back in [though] the doctor tell me to come back in the next hour. Till one o’clock in the morning [Wednesday, July 1st] I beg the guard and seh ‘watch how long I deh out here like a dog and me mother can’t say anything for herself’. When I finally get to go in I see them got mommy in the same section with the suspected COVID patients and I asked the doctors them, ‘what my mother doing there’ and they say ‘don’t worry, don’t worry, we’re going to put her up in the ward’”, Hemrajie recounted.
No ventilators
When asked how she knew that the patients were suspected COVID patients, the daughter said that it was a male nurse who told her not to go any closer to the ward as they have suspected COVID cases in the same ward. The woman said when she further inquired why they then had her mother exposed to persons suspected to have the virus, she was told that there were no ventilators in the female medical ward at the time therefore she was being kept where there were ventilators. Hemrajie said her mother was being kept in a facility nearby the emergency ward. Accord-ing to the woman, her mother was put into the female medical ward later Wednesday morning, July 1st.
Om Wednesday and Thursday, Hemrajie said she and her sister-in-law who is a nurse aide at the same hospital were allowed to feed the woman and clean her up. Doctors she said told the family that Jagnaraine was recovering well and added that they removed her oxygen mask. On Friday, July 3rd however, when the sister-in-law returned Jagnaraine had been moved from the ward.
This was when the family learnt that the woman had tested positive for the virus and was taken to the COVID intensive care unit (ICU). Hemrajie said that at 10.pm Friday, the family received a call from the hospital informing them that Jagnaraine was being transferred to the isolation facility at the WDRH. Thursday, July 2nd was the last time any of the family members were in contact with the woman.
Prahalad shared that following his mother’s transfer, the family would drop meals and clothing off at the hospital which would be given to Jagnaraine. “They (doctors) claiming that she recovering well. I talk to her on Thursday gone. On Friday, something was wrong with the phone she had and we call another patient who said that she (Jagnaraine) eating and she doing real good. We expect she to come home”, the man said.
Prahalad’s wife pointed out that she was the one who answered the phone at 10.15 am on Saturday when it was relayed to them that Jagnaraine had passed away. The family was home at the time when the devastating call came in. It was noted that they were awaiting for the Demerara Harbour Bridge to reopen to vehicular traffic as it had closed off at 9.am that morning. The woman said they were shocked as the now deceased woman was said to be recovering well. She further said when they inquired how it was that her mother-in-law had died, they were told that on Saturday morning when nurses went to check on her, they found that she was not responding.
After Jagnaraine was found to be positive for COVID on Friday, July 3rd, medical personnel turned up at the family’s home the following day where the woman’s husband, Prahalad, a sister and a child were tested. On Tuesday, July 7th the family was again contacted to have the first set of tests redone. “Monday was holiday (Caricom Day) so on Tuesday they call back they said they need to test back the four of us because the results come back inconclusive. When the people come back to test we, I ask them, how accurate is this thing and he (medical personnel) said ‘98%’ accurate whether it read positive or negative”, Prahalad recalled. He shared that the family was tested two Saturdays ago. When they asked why the tests were inconclusive, they were told by the health care worker that the National Reference Lab where testing for COVID was done was closed that weekend and the samples took too long to be tested. The family said they were surprised that the hospital would have them tested knowing that the tests could not be processed with a closed lab. On Tuesday when medical personnel returned to retest the four family members, they declined to be swabbed a second time for the reason that it was invasive.
“On Friday when I found out she was positive I immediately went to my supervisor and they sent me to the East Street screening point where they sent me home for five days because I had contact with her on the Thursday and they had said if they had tested me on Friday, nothing wouldn’t have shown up so they tell me to stay at home for five days and go back the next Tuesday to get tested. Nobody called to tell me whether I was negative or positive but they (hospital staff) were already calling on a daily basis to see if we were showing any symptoms of the virus and when they called on Thursday, my husband asked them what the result was and she told him that it was negative”, Prahalad’s wife said.
The family has since said that none of their family members have shown any symptoms of the virus. It was shared also that sometimes two or three persons from the GPH would call daily to inquire about whether the family was experiencing any COVID symptoms. An annoyed Prahalad said that from the looks of it, the hospital was not keeping a record of their calls as when a second or third GPH staff would call and was told that someone had called already, they replied that they were unaware of that.
Jagnaraine’s son also said that whenever his mother went to uplift her old age pension, either he or another relative would take the woman to avoid her having to take public transportation.
Following the woman’s passing, her family was not allowed to identify her body. According to Prahalad, by the time they received the news of his mother’s passing, her body had already been removed from the hospital and taken to the Ezekiel Funeral Home where she is currently.
In less than two weeks, five persons have died as a result of COVID. Among them are 42-year- old Kevin Ridley, 34-year-old Abdool Khan, 25-year-old Donna Ambrose-Greaves, 76-year-old May Portsmouth and Jagnaraine. Ambrose-Greaves’ family has also allege that the woman contracted the virus while a patient at the hospital. This was also denied by the hospital.
