Doodkumar Sookraj, Guyana’s 21st COVID-19 fatality was a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) at the time of his passing on Thursday.
He was swabbed for the virus only after his death despite being suspected of having the coronavirus.
The thirty-four-year-old East Bank Demerara resident, according to the GPH’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Chelauna Providence, sought attention at the hospital last Wednesday and was admitted. He died the following morning. Sookraj, she said was swabbed shortly after he died. Providence relayed to Stabroek News that Sookraj visited the Emergency Department and was then admitted. At the time of his death, he was said to have been staying in the transition ward of the GPH. The hospital’s PRO explained that the transition ward where he was kept is where patients with suspected COVID symptoms are housed. She noted also that the man was intubated owing to difficulty breathing.
Taking into consideration that Sookraj was kept in the transition ward and was in such a serious condition that he needed a ventilator, it is unclear why he was not swabbed for COVID-19 until the following day and after he would have passed.
Doctors received the man’s result on Saturday which found him to be positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has still not released the name of the 19th COVID-19 fatality. The deceased however was said to be a thirty-four-year-old man from Matthews Ridge, Region One who was a patient at the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the time of his death. A reliable source from the GPH said that it was learnt that the man was a miner who did not have many relatives. This they believe may be the reason they are still to identify him. This newspaper was previously told that the man was admitted to the hospital under an alias.
