KALAIN HO­SEIN

It was the week be­fore Christ­mas and COVID-19 cas­es and deaths in Trinidad and To­ba­go were reach­ing record highs.

On av­er­age, 27 peo­ple suc­cumbed to COVID-19, with over 700 new cas­es dai­ly.

At the time, the Delta COVID-19 vari­ant of con­cern was rav­aging the pop­u­la­tion, spar­ing no com­mu­ni­ty.

In the pre­dom­i­nant­ly agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage of Rio Claro, a month-long hor­ror be­gan for one fam­i­ly af­ter their ma­tri­arch fell ill.

Out of an abun­dance of cau­tion, she sought anti­gen test­ing pri­vate­ly, which re­turned a neg­a­tive re­sult for COVID-19.

One fam­i­ly mem­ber, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the doc­tor told them she had a bout of pneu­mo­nia be­cause the moth­er was asth­mat­ic.

The doc­tor gave them med­ica­tion to self-treat and sent them home.

How­ev­er, the med­ica­tions hard­ly helped.

She was ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

Overnight, she bat­tled per­sis­tent breath­ing prob­lems, forc­ing her to seek treat­ment at the Rio Claro Health Cen­tre ear­ly the next day.

She was test­ed, treat­ed and this time, her fam­i­ly was told she test­ed pos­i­tive. Be­cause her sit­u­a­tion was not im­prov­ing, doc­tors at the health cen­tre de­cid­ed to trans­fer her to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to the fam­i­ly, that is where the re­al night­mare be­gan.

It is a sit­u­a­tion many peo­ple and fam­i­lies have faced in the last two years of the pan­dem­ic.

A seem­ing­ly healthy per­son rapid­ly de­te­ri­o­rates be­fore their eyes and is tak­en away by an am­bu­lance, not know­ing whether they would see them again.

COVID-19 pro­ce­dures pre­vent­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers from be­ing in the am­bu­lance, so they fol­lowed close­ly be­hind.

When they ar­rived, the moth­er was rushed in­to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment while the fam­i­ly camped in the park­ing lot.

They wait­ed for hours, hop­ing for good news. None came that evening. Not even from her cell phone. Fam­i­ly mem­bers called for al­most nine hours, but she nev­er picked up, not think­ing they would nev­er hear her voice ever again.

Af­ter wait­ing since mid­day, around 9 pm, ac­cord­ing to one rel­a­tive, “Some­body come out and tell them ‘aye, your moth­er dead.’ They were like ‘What?’”

Ac­cord­ing to the rel­a­tive, the fam­i­ly was not placed in quar­an­tine, nor were they told to get test­ed.

As the fam­i­ly dealt with the trau­ma of los­ing a loved one, an­oth­er bat­tle arose – how do they get their moth­er’s body back? One doc­tor at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal told them, “It is so bad here. The safest thing I’ll tell you to tell them to do is to po­lice the morgue every day. Go every morn­ing. Go with a pic­ture, go with the name, and tell them you and what you’re look­ing for.”

It took two days of do­ing just that for the fam­i­ly to have their moth­er one last time.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, be­cause of the surge of COVID-19 deaths pri­or to Christ­mas last year, their sit­u­a­tion was not unique, but it did not lessen the grief.

Com­pound­ing the fam­i­ly’s trag­ic sto­ry at the end of 2021, more of them test­ed pos­i­tive.

One was for­tu­nate enough to walk out alive and is rest­ing at home. The oth­er is still bat­tling the dis­ease at the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Over the next sev­er­al days, Guardian Me­dia will be bring­ing you more sto­ries of those who had a brush with COVID-19 with­in the health­care sys­tem, tales of those who lived, and ac­counts from those on the front lines. If you’d like to tell your sto­ry, on or off the record, you can reach out at kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt.