When Dr Berysha Saskia Solomon’s mother worked as a Special Constable and struggled to send her to school she must have felt rewarded when her daughter moved to St Joseph High, then President’s College before ultimately securing a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba, which she successfully completed. What she would not have bargained for, was having to now work as a maid while struggling to send Dr Solomon’s younger brother to school as he prepares for CXC and dealing with her daughter being jobless and mentally ill.
Solomon, who returned from Cuba in 2016, was recently forced to work as a security guard in the night after working as doctor during the day. The reason for this, she said, was because a big chunk of her salary was being withheld while she completed her contractual agreement with the government, and she was forced to augment her income by becoming employed with Kalibur Security Service for five months.
In an interview with this newspaper, 31-year-old Solomon claimed that she was being racially discriminated against as she work at the Georgetown Public Hospital. She also admitted to having had a public online spat with another doctor, which reached the Medical Council of Guyana and resulted in her licence being withheld. What was evident from Solomon’s utterances was that she has had issues with the authorities from the time she came back to do her internship.
Because of the hardships she faced, she said, she became mentally ill and was forced to seek medical attention. Today, she no longer wishes to work in Guyana and is longing to be released from her contractual agreement and allowed to leave the country. However, this move is being blocked because, according to her, she was told she has two more months of her contract to complete, although she has not been placed at any hospital or health centre to do so.
“… All I want is for this stamp to be removed from my passport and get a release letter to travel. This thing has been impacting my mental health,” Solomon told this newspaper recently.
She is of the opinion she is being held “hostage against my will” and made it clear that she no longer wants to live in Guyana and does not want to be “forced to remain here”.
She said she has since written to all of the Cabinet ministers, heads of the diplomatic missions and even regional heads highlighting her plight and indicating that her human rights is being taken away as she is not allowed free travel.
Stabroek News attempted to get a comment from Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony on the matter, but this proved futile. Anthony did not directly respond to a WhatsApp message sent, instead he forwarded an interview Solomon did online and a comment she made on social media.
Solomon said today she is unable to work and earn and depends on her mother. “I am not working; it is just mommy. Mommy is a single mom and she is a maid and usually tries her best to give me food and so…,” she said.
According to Solomon her contract should have ended on October 31, 2021, but from September last year she was not working. She said that prior to September she was at the West Demerara Regional Hospital and she was then told she was being sent to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), but she never received a placement letter from the Ministry of Health.
“I kept running to the Ministry of Health and calling them for the placement letter to start working at GPHC, but they never gave it to me,” she said. She claimed that she was told by an official that a member of parliament indicated that she should not be given a placement letter, “because we no longer want her working in the system”.
She was paid from September to January this year, the same month she wrote to the ministry asking for her release letter, which would allow her to travel. It was then she was told that she owed the ministry two months of work. Solomon said she offered to work for free so she could have her release letter.
“They do not want to that,” she said. “It is just a whole political gimmick they are playing saying ‘oh you have to wait until [name of official] give approval for you to come back. I said listen to this, I don’t want to work… [as] a doctor… I don’t want to work back with the Ministry of Health. You already illegally removed my salary and I am a public servant; I just want my release letter so I can go my way…”
She has written letters to the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Public Service asking them to intervene but has received no response.
Issues
Prior to all of this, Solomon said, she had issues with Dr Anthony, who was on the medical council board from 2018 to 2020 under the previous administration. She said she had problems with some doctors in the general surgery department at the GPH where she was denied being allowed to practically complete her training. At the end of the training she was given a failed grade for general surgery by the doctor in charge
Pressed on what those problems were, she said they were “work-related issues, it had nothing to do with patients… and because I told them they were racial and those things and I would have reported them to the former minister of health that is why they always set for me to ensure when they go back in power they would fire me”.
In 2017, Solomon said, she had a “big issue” with another female doctor at the West Demerara Regional Hospital. According to her, they had a “big cuss out on Facebook”; and while she was an intern, the woman was already a registered doctor. She said that after the “big Facebook drama”, the doctor waited until she had written to the medical council for her licence and then wrote to the board, accusing Solomon of harassing her. The doctor also submitted a transcript of the Facebook incident, some of which, Solomon said, was “cut and paste”.
She said the incident had nothing to do with her work or patients nor did it happen at any hospital, yet she was summoned to a meeting with the council in 2017 for professional misconduct.
“I don’t know how is that professional misconduct. Me and a doctor cussing out, that did not have nothing to do with work, it was over a male doctor; it had nothing to with them,” she said.
She turned up to the meeting with her attorney and questioned what the issue had to do with the council as it was not professional misconduct. She was told she had to admit to the allegations, or she would be placed before the council’s disciplinary committee. She was given a copy of the alleged Facebook incident and she later responded to the council indicating she was not guilty of any professional misconduct and that the alleged conversations between her and the doctor were “fake stuff”.
She never got a response to that letter, nor the follow-up letters sent by her attorney but said it has since been used as a “blackmail over my head”.
She said through her attorney and even with direct contact, she attempted to get the assistance of officials under the previous administration, but their responses were not satisfactory.
‘Long story’
Calling it a “long story” Solomon said to date she has not been given her full registration as a medical doctor. She pointed out that while she can legally challenge the issue in court, she is fearful that it would be dragged out and since she is not working she can ill afford legal fees
Solomon said she feels victimised as she believes if she was of another race she would not have had her medical registration withheld and denied permission to leave the country.
Last year September, she started studying International Relations at the University of West Indies and had requested financial assistance to cover the cost, but this was refused. Solomon said she wrote to Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and she copied the letter to President Irfaan Ali, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd.
In that letter, apart from asking for assistance to settle her $2 million student fee at UWI, she also made claims of being racially victimised. She also wrote to other regional heads. She has received no responses from anyone. However, she said, she had a huge balance of US$8,000 and recently she has been told that the balance was only US$1,500 but she is unclear as to who paid the US$6,500. She is close to completing her studies at the university.
Because of how she was treated, Solomon said, in 2019 she was diagnosed with depression and started attending the clinic at GPH. After her salary was cut this year, Solomon said, she had a nervous breakdown.
“I was day and night crying… I used to walk on the road at night through the street up and down… it was real bad,” she shared.
According to the doctor, during the vote recount process in 2020 she was told by a ministry official that she would never get her full registration as a new government was about to be sworn in and he would make sure she was fired.
“I end up going and make a lot of friends with people in the PPP Government so I could work out my contract… They appointed me to be the vice chairman of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Pesticide Board and I was very supportive of them from 2020 to 2021,” Solomon said adding that she had been critical of the previous administration on Facebook.
She said she has since written to Minister Anthony informing him that she already has the Dr in front of her name “and I say now the government can’t undoctor me, you cannot take away my academic qualification from me”.
She added, “I didn’t go and study medicine to come back in my country to fight no racism…”
She is now completing her post graduate diploma in International Relations as she hopes to specialise in global health.
