Camille Clarke

A 20-year-old Nel­son Street man and two women were shot yes­ter­day in broad day­light on the com­pound of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.Po­lice said one gun­man was be­hind the at­tack which left Chavez Top­pin, Alexan­dra Bha­gan, 29, of Barataria, and Se­lene Cam­po, 28, of Siparia, hos­pi­talised last night with gun­shot in­juries.Bha­gan, a dai­ly-rat­ed work­er at the hos­pi­tal, was shot in the face, while Cam­po was shot in the foot.Top­pin, how­ev­er, was the first vic­tim when, around 2 pm, he was ap­proached by the gun­man out­side one of the food stalls at the hos­pi­tal. The gun­man said he had come for Pa­tron and opened fire.

Po­lice said Top­pin tried to shel­ter be­hind Bha­gan, who was shot and col­lapsed on the ground. The gun­man al­so shot Cam­po in the foot dur­ing the at­tack, then ran away and es­caped near the East Dry Riv­er.Top­pin ran too and was lat­er as­sist­ed to the Emer­gency De­part­ment.The vic­tims re­mained un­der po­lice guard last night.Po­lice said Top­pin was tak­ing an­oth­er man to the hos­pi­tal to re­move his ban­dages from an in­jury. The oth­er man had been shot last week.Se­cu­ri­ty guards at the hos­pi­tal said they did not car­ry guns, but they did not fear for their lives.Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son said po­lice would in­crease pa­trols in the area."We do pa­trol the com­mu­ni­ty, and I have giv­en in­struc­tions to cre­ate more pa­trols around the hos­pi­tal. But it has its own se­cu­ri­ty and I just gave in­struc­tions to the IATF (In­ter-Agency Task Force) and GB (Guard and Emer­gency Branch) to in­crease (them) as part of their pa­trols," he said.

Dr Ed­die Haqq, chair­man of the board of the North­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, said in a tele­phone in­ter­view that he was con­cerned about the crime sit­u­a­tion."We are do­ing our best to treat the in­jured, and the se­ri­ous­ly in­jured is at the ICU at the hos­pi­tal," he said. "I am very shocked by the in­ci­dent and con­cerned for the staff and oth­er per­sons. We have al­ready in­sti­tut­ed ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures. Nor­mal­ly we ask po­lice to in­crease pa­trols."Haqq said the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers who were on du­ty were not pre­cept­ed of­fi­cers.

Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan was un­avail­able for com­ment.