Sascha Wil­son

A High Court judge is call­ing on the Min­istry of Health to launch an in­quiry in­to why a health au­thor­i­ty failed to pro­vide the med­ical records of a fe­male pa­tient who died at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) ten years ago.In dis­miss­ing a med­ical neg­li­gence law­suit brought against the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad ex­pressed dis­ap­proval at the SWRHA's ac­tions, or lack there­of.

Roy Cae­sar sued the SWRHA af­ter his youngest daugh­ter, Es­la Cae­sar, 25, the moth­er of one, died on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2004, at the SFGH four days af­ter an op­er­a­tion to re­move a tu­mour in her brain.The surgery was a suc­cess, Cae­sar said in his af­fi­davit but he claimed neg­li­gence in the post-care treat­ment.The fa­ther of four, who lives in To­ba­go, said his daugh­ter de­vel­oped gan­grene in her toes and died from bron­cho-pneu­mo­nia.

He blamed neg­li­gent post-op­er­a­tive care for his daugh­ter de­vel­op­ing the con­di­tions which led to her sud­den and un­ex­pect­ed death, which, he said, had caused grief and trau­ma to the fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing her son, then three.De­spite sev­er­al ef­forts over the last six years, the fa­ther said he did not get a sin­gle med­ical re­port from the SWRHA.In de­liv­er­ing judg­ment in the San Fer­nan­do High Court, the judge said there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

He said the med­ical records would have helped de­ter­mine the na­ture of the treat­ment giv­en to Cae­sar in re­la­tion to her surgery and de­vel­op­ment of any oth­er con­di­tion.Say­ing the court felt con­strained to com­ment on the SWRHA's con­duct, he said:"The de­fen­dant failed, re­fused and/or ne­glect­ed to fur­nish the claimants with any doc­u­men­ta­tion with re­spect to the treat­ment af­ford­ed to the de­ceased.

"The de­fen­dant dis­charges a pub­lic func­tion where free med­ical care is af­ford­ed to cit­i­zens. In such a cir­cum­stance, there must be an oblig­a­tion to dis­charge its func­tions ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly and there must al­ways be pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty."Any doc­u­men­ta­tion in re­la­tion to the de­ceased's treat­ment ought to have been dis­closed and if the doc­u­men­ta­tion was mis­placed or lost, then at­tempts ought to have ben made to con­tact and ob­tain state­ments from the doc­tors and nurs­es who treat­ed the de­ceased."

He added: "Pub­lic of­fi­cials and func­tionar­ies must al­ways be ac­count­able for their ac­tions. The Min­istry of Health would be well ad­vised to con­duct an in­quiry in­to this mat­ter and the course adopt­ed in this mat­ter ought nev­er to be re­peat­ed."How­ev­er, the judge said the claimants failed to lead the re­quest­ed ev­i­dence to sup­port their case and could have tried to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion from the neu­ro­sur­geon who did the surgery.

Hav­ing con­sid­ered the his­to­ry of the case, the lack of as­sis­tance and in­for­ma­tion from SWRHA, in­clud­ing the fail­ure to file wit­ness state­ments, the judge made no or­der for costs.The claimants were rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Roger Kawals­ingh and Lisa Fran­cis. The SWRHA was rep­re­sent­ed by An­dre Ra­jku­mar.

Ver­dict up­sets fam­i­ly

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side the court, Cae­sar said he was to­tal­ly dis­sat­is­fied with the judg­ment.He com­plained that the fam­i­ly's at­tempts to get the med­ical records from the four pub­lic hos­pi­tals – Scar­bor­ough, San Fer­nan­do, Mt Hope and Port-of-Spain–were un­suc­cess­ful.He said he was to­tal­ly un­hap­py and might con­sid­er ap­peal­ing the rul­ing.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment, SWRHA CEO Anil Go­sine said he was not aware of the mat­ter and said he had to speak with the au­thor­i­ty's le­gal ad­vis­er be­fore com­ment­ing.