The family of the 24th COVID fatality, Aaron Peters, say that they did not learn of the man’s positive COVID-19 test until after his death and they are convinced that he would have contracted the deadly virus following his admission to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
Peters, an 87-year-old resident from Golden Grove, East Bank Deme-rara was a diabetic who had an enlarged heart and who some time ago was diagnosed with lung disease.
His daughter, Kim said that on August 9th, her father had stopped eating which she suspected may have been as a result of his diabetes. She noted also that he had a cold for several days which may have made eating a bit more challenging. Peters, she added had a habit of sitting on the verandah every day but as he wasn’t eating, he didn’t go out to sit there anymore. By the morning of Tuesday, August 11th, Kim said she realized her father was getting no better and decided to take him to see the doctor at the Diamond Hospital. “I was worried for him because once he isn’t eating, I guess his sugar would go up high”, said the woman.
The woman added that when she arrived at the Diamond Hospital, a staffer there informed her that the building was under renovation and that since Peters had a cold, she should take him across to the Herstelling Health Centre to be swabbed for COVID. Kim said that all she wanted was help for her father and was ready to do anything that was asked of them. However, after the sample was taken, she took Peters to the GPH as the health centre had no doctor.
“It’s the hospital negligence I would say, because when I take my father to the hospital the Tuesday, they put him in a separate room in the Emergency Room and they put him on the oxygen. On the oxygen [cylinder] it marked ‘Tracker COVID-19’. I decided to accept that they were just being careful because everything could be COVID-19 now. I think to myself, you know when they realize it’s not COVID-19, they would take him off from the oxygen and find his sickness and treat him for that. While waiting to see which ward they will put him in, one of the hospital [staff] came out and said, ‘Oh, you can’t sit here, you can’t wait here’ and I left and I come home because I was so frustrated and tired of being there all day”, Kim said.
The woman said when she returned on Wednesday her father was right where she had left him. Peters, she said, was on the middle bed between two other patients. “When I went and give his name to the security at the desk, they tell me ‘Oh, you can’t go there, you can’t carry anything for him, you can’t talk to him, you can’t even see him’. From the desk at the gate, I could have seen my dad lying right there. They told me, that I could have left a phone with him but my dad is aged. He doesn’t understand how to answer a phone…so I didn’t leave a phone with him”, she said.
Kim said her father was taken to the COVID-19 ICU on Wednesday even-ing though she didn’t learn that then; she had only learnt that he had been moved. A doctor, she said, told her not to come on Thursday as she still wouldn’t be able to see him and that the hospital would make contact with her but by Friday morning when she hadn’t heard from the hospital, she decided to pay a visit.
“I went into Emergency and give his name and they tell me to go to Medical Records. I go over to Medical Records, Medical Records told me that he was at the back in the Male Ward. When we go there [a staff] told us that we just can’t go up into the ward and that she needed to call first to find out if there’s a patient at that name; he wasn’t there. We come back to Medical Records, they said check on another side, there are some Male Wards there. All over these people got me walking and I was so scared that this man probably passed away and nobody don’t want to tell me something. I went back again into Emer-gency, they said go back to the COVID section where they normally test for the coronavirus. Nobody there could help me. When I come back around, one female [staff], she told me, she know where he is and she direct us to go up a step which she said will take me to the COVID-19 ICU”, the woman explained.
She was finally able to confirm that Peters was indeed in the COVID ICU. The runaround to find her father she said, took more than half an hour. Though she couldn’t have seen her father, Kim said she was given a number to contact the staff at the ICU about her father’s condition.
After she went back home, Friday evening she called the COVID-19 ICU where according to her, the doctor said he wasn’t responding to the machine but he was resting. She called again on Saturday morning (August 15th) and doctors told her that Peters was not breathing on his own and that they needed to put him on another ventilator. The following day Kim said when she called again, doctors said her father was doing much better and as soon as he woke up and could talk, they would have him talk to her. On Sunday afternoon, doctors returned a call to Kim via a video call on WhatsApp where she was able to talk to Peters. Her father, she said, told her he was feeling much better. Kim said she asked the doctor whether he was improving and the doctor replied that he needed “a lot” of oxygen which once he was able to take, he will improve. This was the first and last time she was able to speak to Peters following his admission at the hospital. On Monday morning (August 17th) at 5:30, Kim received a call telling her that her father had passed away. This was really a shock for the family, she said having only talked with him, the day before. “When they tell me he had COVID was on Tuesday (August 18th), the day after he died”, she said.
Kim explained that some years ago following his diagnosis of an enlarged heart, and also because Peters had gained some weight, she encouraged him to do some exercises in the backyard. He had been having issues with shortness of breath since then she noted.
“It has been really frustrating. I have been telling myself, if I had taken my dad to Woodlands Hospital or any other private hospital, I believe in my heart that my dad would have been here today. He may not have been back home because of his sickness but he might have been alive still at the hospital and we would have been able to go and visit him. My dad was a loving and caring father to us. My girls miss him so much”, the woman lamented.
Peters lived with Kim, her husband and her two daughters but since his passing last Monday, no one from the hospital has turned up at the family’s residence to take samples from them to be tested for COVID. Instead the GPH has been calling to see whether the family has been experiencing any symptoms of the virus. Up to Sunday morning, the hospital called again to check that the family has remained in home quarantine.
To date, Kim said, neither she nor any member of her family has fallen sick or shown any symptoms of the virus. Nevertheless, Kim said she isn’t waiting for anyone to come and see whether she has contracted the virus and has taken it upon herself to make her own home remedy and use it, should she have COVID.
The woman said that she and her family as well as a neighbour are being discriminated against. She explained that after the passing of Peters, the store her sister worked at demanded that she stay at home for two weeks although she doesn’t live with Kim and her family nor had she been in contact with Peters or other family members. Her sister she said lives in Campbellville. She hasn’t yet returned to work.
Meanwhile, a neighbour who works at a Chinese Restaurant in the area was asked by her boss last week to stay at home after informing her that they had learnt about Peters’ death on the news. Kim said while she is courteous to her neighbour from afar, they do not socialize. She added that she recently learnt from the same neighbour that the restaurant owner has since replaced her with a new employee.
