On May 16, a 23-year-old young woman was ad­mit­ted to Ward 53 of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal with pos­si­ble pneu­mo­nia and a breath­ing prob­lem. The ser­vice-dri­ven staff of Ward 53 was so ded­i­cat­ed and ef­fi­cient that they didn't re­alise she was sup­posed to be on an­oth­er ward. She was trans­ferred to the cor­rect ward the next day and placed on oxy­gen since she was not breath­ing prop­er­ly. How­ev­er, not be­ing a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, I as­sume she should have been giv­en the oxy­gen that comes di­rect­ly in­stead of oxy­gen tanks that could be de­plet­ed.

In­evitably, on May 18, as ex­pect­ed, her tank ran out. Our hard­work­ing and dili­gent nurs­es did not check or mon­i­tor the elapse time of the oxy­gen gauges of the young girl with the breath­ing prob­lem. Of course she was rushed to ICU but the dam­age con­trol method was too late. The young woman sub­se­quent­ly died of heart fail­ure. Can the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty ex­plain how this could hap­pen when she had a healthy and nor­mal heart? The an­swer lies with our trained pro­fes­sion­als who are con­stant­ly protest­ing for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions and wages.Mr Doc­tor and Ms Nurse, where was the promise to heal and care? Where was your sense of du­ty?

This young woman had a fam­i­ly just like all of you. Would your fam­i­ly like to be placed in a sit­u­a­tion like this? We sure are not hap­py right now. At 23 years this young woman is dead. Who will stand up and say they are re­spon­si­ble? Would there be an in­quiry? Would the Min­is­ter of Health with her HR back­ground dis­ci­pline or hold any­one cul­pa­ble for this in­frac­tion? I doubt that, not in this coun­try where hu­man lives and Hip­po­crat­ic oaths are on­ly for pomp and show. So to the staff at Port-of Spain Gen­er­al I say, keep up the good work. And con­tin­ue to protest and march with plac­ards for bet­ter wages.

RIP Avion Sali­na.

An­nal­isa Sali­na

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