JENSEN LA VENDE
Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

High Court Judge West­min James has award­ed a nurs­ing as­sis­tant $850,000 in dam­ages af­ter she was forced to re­tire med­ical­ly un­fit, fol­low­ing a fall at the Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in 2018. The 53-year-old nurs­ing as­sis­tant, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied for fear she might be tar­get­ed, said that since the in­ci­dent, she has suf­fered a sig­nif­i­cant loss of earn­ings. The rul­ing was hand­ed down on Sep­tem­ber 23 af­ter the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty con­ced­ed li­a­bil­i­ty.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, on June 21, 2024, I was forced in­to re­tire­ment on med­ical grounds, end­ing my ca­reer pre­ma­ture­ly. The fi­nan­cial im­pact is dev­as­tat­ing, and I not on­ly lost steady in­come from No­vem­ber 2022 on­ward but al­so the op­por­tu­ni­ty for fu­ture earn­ings, pro­mo­tions, and pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions. I have gone from be­ing fi­nan­cial­ly se­cure in a per­ma­nent nurs­ing role to be­ing de­pen­dent and un­cer­tain, with di­min­ished prospects of ever re­join­ing the work­force.”

She said that on June 6, 2018, she went to re­trieve linens and, on her way back, felt her left foot fall in­to a hole con­tain­ing bro­ken frag­ments of ce­ment. This, she said, caused her an­kle to twist, and she lost her bal­ance.

Ini­tial­ly, she was giv­en four days’ sick leave; how­ev­er, as the swelling per­sist­ed and the pain did not de­crease, her sick leave was ex­tend­ed, and she was made to un­der­go sev­er­al ex­am­i­na­tions, phys­io­ther­a­py, and surgery in the hopes of cor­rect­ing the is­sue.

It was lat­er learned that, fol­low­ing an MRI scan on Oc­to­ber 8, 2021, the nurs­ing as­sis­tant had an an­te­ri­or talo-fibu­lar lig­a­ment in­jury and sus­tained a grade-2 strain con­sis­tent with an­kle in­sta­bil­i­ty and lig­a­ment pain. Two weeks lat­er, there was re­stric­tion of all an­kle move­ments, “with in­ver­sion and ever­sion se­vere­ly re­strict­ed; mo­bil­is­ing, mus­cle-strength­en­ing, and lat­er pro­pri­o­cep­tor ex­er­cis­es were pre­scribed,” her wit­ness state­ment said.

Be­tween the date of the fall and the date she was sent in­to re­tire­ment, the nurs­ing as­sis­tant said she was back and forth be­tween doc­tors, re­peat­ed­ly placed on sick leave and ex­tend­ed sick leave.

Her wit­ness state­ment added: “I was re­ferred to the Med­ical Board on the 22nd day of Feb­ru­ary 2024 and, by let­ter dat­ed the 29th day of Feb­ru­ary 2024, I was found med­ical­ly un­fit for any fur­ther em­ploy­ment and re­tired on med­ical grounds based on the Board’s find­ings. By let­ters dat­ed the 26th day of June 2024, I was no­ti­fied that my ef­fec­tive date of re­tire­ment on med­ical grounds was the 21st day of June 2024 and ap­proval was giv­en for 75 work­ing days’ va­ca­tion leave from the 29th day of Feb­ru­ary 2024 to the 20th day of June 2024, and my ab­sence from the 29th day of Au­gust 2023 to the 28th day of Feb­ru­ary 2024 was re­clas­si­fied as sick leave with pay.”

She con­tend­ed that her re­clas­si­fi­ca­tion caused a sig­nif­i­cant loss of earn­ings af­ter be­ing per­ma­nent­ly em­ployed with a month­ly salary of $8,565.70. She sued for pre-tri­al loss of earn­ings amount­ing to $89,939.85. She al­so sued for med­ical costs, which in­clud­ed the MRI at $3,100 and ex­pens­es to­talling $123,309.29.

The nurs­ing as­sis­tant was rep­re­sent­ed by Ab­del Mo­hammed and Sha­nia Sinanan.