As a sin­gle and in­de­pen­dent moth­er, Kather­ine Akum Lum was liv­ing her best life. She loved her job as a build­ing de­sign­er and project man­ag­er and was very suc­cess­ful. Akum Lum, at age 51, was pro­vid­ing a good and hap­py life for her son. She had al­so found love again af­ter sur­viv­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in her re­la­tion­ship. She was healthy and look­ing for­ward to a long and bliss­ful life. But, her world came crash­ing down on June 12, 2019, when she went to the St James Med­ical Cen­tre for a hys­terec­to­my.

Dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, she said a doc­tor ac­ci­den­tal­ly used lye to wash out in­side her pelvic area in­stead of dis­tilled wa­ter, caus­ing ex­ten­sive dam­age to her kid­neys and ab­dom­i­nal wall. Lye, com­mon­ly used to clean drains and toi­lets, is a form of acid and is cor­ro­sive to the flesh.

Now, the clock is tick­ing and she needs to do an ur­gent ureter­al re­con­struc­tive surgery cost­ing US $116,000 which the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) agreed to pay for. How­ev­er, she claims the NWRHA is now stat­ing that they may not be able to ac­cess the US cur­ren­cy by the date of her sched­uled surgery–Feb­ru­ary 17–rip­ping apart the thin veil of hope she has been cling­ing to.

If the pay­ments are not made by the end of this week, she may have to resched­ule the surgery. As her tears flowed, she begged, "I am plead­ing and I am beg­ging Mr Ter­rence Deyals­ingh to please help me. Your in­com­pe­tent in­sti­tu­tion has done this to me. Please, I need to live. If it wasn’t for the surgery I would have been nor­mal and liv­ing a hap­py life.

"I am beg­ging and plead­ing with you to help me to get my surgery. The surgery that North West has promised to do. How long will I live like this? Are they wait­ing for me to die so they don't have to pay for my surgery? Be­cause of them, I am in this po­si­tion," Akum Lum plead­ed.

The NWRHA CEO, how­ev­er, said they are mak­ing all re­quired re­quests to the Au­thor­i­ty's bankers to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ments. (See be­low)

Just a shell of the woman she used to be, Akum Lum, who weighs un­der 90 pounds, now spends most of her days in chron­ic pain on her bed pray­ing that her night­mare will end. Af­ter be­ing bedrid­den for two years, she can on­ly now walk short dis­tances, but very slow­ly as every step is painful.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian at her Ch­agua­nas home, Akum Lum, who was propped up by pil­lows on her bed, said her bed­room has now be­come her prison.

Sev­er­al times dur­ing the in­ter­view she broke down in tears and re­peat­ed­ly rubbed her ab­domen com­plain­ing of pain, and there were times when she had to take a few sec­onds to com­pose her­self as she took sips of wa­ter.

Show­ing the two urine bags at­tached to the tubes in­sert­ed in her kid­neys through her back, she cried, "How long again can I live like this?" Re­call­ing when her life be­gan to crum­ble, she said she went to the doc­tor be­cause she was not feel­ing well and was told she had an ovar­i­an cyst. On her doc­tor's ad­vice, she de­cid­ed to do a hys­terec­to­my be­cause they were con­cerned that it was can­cer­ous.

"I was pet­ri­fied be­cause it was my first time do­ing surgery. I have al­ways used the pri­vate sec­tor to do every­thing. But, a rel­a­tive of mine who is a doc­tor told me to go to St James Med­ical be­cause they are best to do this surgery be­cause we don’t know if it is can­cer­ous or not, so I de­cid­ed to take her ad­vice be­cause I know she would give me the best ad­vice."

The surgery was sched­uled for June 12, 2019. "I was pet­ri­fied. I said my prayers and I went in to do my surgery. When I woke up the fol­low­ing day the doc­tor had told me that some­thing hap­pened to me. I could not un­der­stand be­cause when I came out my feet were swollen, my face was swollen. I could bare­ly talk. I was re­al­ly, re­al­ly sick. I was feel­ing so hor­ri­ble I thought it was be­cause of the surgery, but then the doc­tor said to me that they sprayed a caus­tic wash, but I could not un­der­stand what was a caus­tic wash be­cause I am no doc­tor."

Re­call­ing the hor­ror she ex­pe­ri­enced, she said she spent two weeks in hos­pi­tal. "In that two weeks, I was wear­ing pam­pers. Af­ter I came out of the surgery I was pass­ing black stool un­con­trol­lably. I was won­der­ing God what is this? What is hap­pen­ing to me?" Akum Lum al­so had no con­trol of her urine and was just "leak­ing like a pipe."

While she walked in­to the hos­pi­tal to do her surgery, she had to be wheeled out of the hos­pi­tal in a wheel­chair and in pam­pers to go home. "I came home re­al­ly, re­al­ly sick. I did not know what was go­ing on." She de­pend­ed on her son, then nine years old, and her com­pan­ion, Reynold Ramkissoon, to take care of her.

Akum Lum said she felt help­less, de­pressed, em­bar­rassed and con­fused about what was hap­pen­ing to her. "They raped me of my in­de­pen­dence. It isn’t easy to be a healthy nor­mal woman and the next day when you wake up you suf­fer­ing from this dis­abil­i­ty and you need some­one. I am al­ways strong and I do every­thing for my­self, now I need help. I need some­one to take me if I have to go any­where."

Katherine Akum Lum lay in pain on her bed.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

'On­ly when lawyers stepped in I got an­swers'

She went back to the St James fa­cil­i­ty two months lat­er hop­ing to find out what liq­uid was used in her body, but an of­fi­cial told her the liq­uid was not suf­fi­cient to go for test­ing. Akum Lum said she asked if she could get a sam­ple to take for pri­vate test­ing abroad but got no re­ply.

"Is on­ly when my lawyers stepped in then I knew what they had sprayed in­side of me–liq­uid lye. Lye is what they use to clean the con­crete and the moss and drain. Can any­one re­al­ly tell me what liq­uid lye was do­ing in the op­er­at­ing the­atre?"

Akum Lum's worst fears came to re­al­i­ty as she learnt de­tails of the hor­ror that was per­pe­trat­ed against her and the ex­tent of the in­juries which are detri­men­tal to her body and her life.

Akum Lum said she was told it would take 90 min­utes to do the hys­terec­to­my. In­stead, she said, the pro­ce­dure took nine hours dur­ing which pieces of her small and large in­testines had to be cut out.

"The part of my in­tes­tine that ab­sorbs B12 was cut out so I have to take B12 (sup­ple­ments) for the rest of my life."

Akum Lum lat­er un­der­went a pro­ce­dure to put nephros­to­my tubes be­cause her two ureters, the ducts that con­nect to the blad­der and kid­ney, were al­so dam­aged. "Present­ly, I have two nephros­to­my tubes. I have a third one that is lodged in­side my kid­ney, the stent im­plant, they were un­able to take it out in the pro­ce­dure which I did in March.

"They dis­cov­ered be­cause of what is hap­pen­ing with me I now have a large kid­ney stone, hence the rea­son I have to get the surgery done be­cause it could cause re­nal fail­ure be­cause it is both kid­neys. I can live with one kid­ney but I have both kid­neys in dan­ger, they are swollen. I al­so have a vagi­na fis­tu­la and in­side of my ab­dom­i­nal area, the lin­ing is al­so dam­aged."

She said every day her tubes are flushed out and they are sup­posed to be changed every six months, but it costs $30,000 to re­place the tubes. Akum Lum ex­plained that her tubes be­come blocked and in­fect­ed fre­quent­ly. "I am in a lot of pain, my stom­ach hurts, my back hurts, my head hurts. I am just tired. I am re­al­ly, re­al­ly tired."

Attorney Anand Ramlogan.

Free­dom Law Cham­bers hired to take le­gal ac­tion

Akum Lum ini­ti­at­ed le­gal pro­ceed­ings through Free­dom Law Cham­bers which is still pend­ing. How­ev­er, she said the NWRHA agreed to pay the cost for re­con­struc­tive surgery to be done at the Urol­o­gy of Vir­ginia, Sen­tara Nor­folk Hos­pi­tal be­cause her case is unique and can­not be treat­ed lo­cal­ly. Point­ing to her two suit­cas­es in her bed­room, Akum Lum said the surgery was al­ready booked and they are sup­posed to leave for the Unit­ed States on Sat­ur­day.

"Now they give me this false hope that I will go and do this surgery. It is just a set of promis­es and promis­es from this in­sti­tu­tion. They promise to send me abroad to do re­con­struc­tive surgery be­cause there is no one else to do it here. It is the first time that some­one's in­side was sprayed with lye. As the time is ap­proach­ing, now they are say­ing they don’t have the funds but they can find the mon­ey for Car­ni­val, the $20 mil­lion and they can­not give me the mon­ey to do my surgery. That is a heart­less and reck­less in­sti­tu­tion. With­out the surgery, I can die."

Akum Lum, sob­bing as she re­count­ed her ex­pe­ri­ence, said "The nurs­es and they kept ask­ing me if I was a Venezue­lan, that was when they had the big is­sue with the Venezue­lans and the work per­mits."

Akum Lum ad­mit­ted that she had con­tem­plat­ed end­ing her life. But, she said her faith was what has kept her go­ing as well as sup­port from her com­pan­ion. She has al­so got­ten sup­port from at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan and her oth­er lawyers, fam­i­ly and friends.

"I am de­pressed. I have to live with two bags. I can­not walk. I can­not func­tion. I can­not do any­thing. I can­not eat. I can­not sleep. I just want to be nor­mal again."

But, Akum Lum knows that she may nev­er lead a nor­mal life again, but she is hop­ing that af­ter the surgery she could lead a pain­less and tube­less life and re­turn to some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy.

Akum Lum start­ed build­ing her own five-bed­room home, but nev­er got a chance to com­plete it. She was hop­ing to mar­ry her com­pan­ion, trav­el the world with him and her son and pro­vide the best ed­u­ca­tion for her son.

In­stead, she said her son is trau­ma­tised and lives in fear that she may die, while her re­la­tion­ship with her com­pan­ion is in jeop­ardy. She has de­plet­ed all her sav­ings as she pays some­one to clean her tubes and an­oth­er per­son to pre­pare their meals.

Chastis­ing the NWRHA, she said, "They did this to me. But up to to­day, they have not apol­o­gised to me to say that I am sor­ry. I thank God I am alive to tell my sto­ry. This is a night­mare, it is like a hor­ror sto­ry."

The case, and what med­ical ex­perts say

Lum's med­ical neg­li­gence law­suit is be­ing heard be­fore Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed. In a let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 27, the NWRHA stat­ed, “Whilst we note your op­ti­mistic ob­ser­va­tions about our client's abil­i­ty to ob­tain the US from its bankers, our client can­not guar­an­tee it will re­ceive the sub­stan­tial sum of US$115,920.00 by the 13-02-22 and cer­tain­ly not be­fore the 31-01-22, es­pe­cial­ly as we still await the in­voice from the hos­pi­tal.”

Akum Lum has sub­mit­ted in­de­pen­dent med­ical ex­pert re­ports from a bat­tery of ex­perts who have all tes­ti­fied to her de­bil­i­tat­ing con­di­tion.

Dr Dilip Dan, Pro­fes­sor of Min­i­mal­ly In­va­sive Surgery, Head of De­part­ment of Clin­i­cal Sur­gi­cal Sci­ences at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, has stat­ed “The re­sul­tant in­juries to her ureters re­quire ma­jor re­con­struc­tive surgery at a high-vol­ume cen­tre...Her is­sues are life­long and even with cor­rec­tive surgery, she will like­ly nev­er re­turn to her nor­mal func­tion­al lev­el or be pain-free. There is a se­ri­ous risk that Mrs Lum's con­di­tion could de­te­ri­o­rate and sig­nif­i­cant­ly wors­en un­less she re­ceives the nec­es­sary med­ical care as set out as a mat­ter of ur­gency.”

Dr Karen So­han, Con­sul­tant ob­ste­tri­cian and gy­nae­col­o­gist has stat­ed “The long-term con­se­quences of the use of lye in this quan­ti­ty and con­cen­tra­tion will in­clude chron­ic ab­dom­i­nal and pelvic pain and is ex­pect­ed to be se­vere be­cause of the amount of scar­ring. It is ex­pect­ed that the pa­tient will be de­bil­i­tat­ed for the rest of her life.”

Dr Vi­nood Ban­doo, Con­sul­tant Urol­o­gist, has stat­ed “Time is of the essence, as her re­nal com­pro­mise can be­come fa­tal if she does not have re­con­struc­tive surgery.” Mean­while, the NWRHA, rep­re­sent­ed by Ravin­dra Nan­ga, who is al­so the chair­man of WASA, in­struct­ed by Alana Bisses­sar from Pol­lon­ais, Blanc, de la Bastide & Jacelon, ad­mit­ted that the dis­tilled wa­ter was con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with lye.

North West Regional Health Authority CEO Salisha Baksh.

NWRHA CEO: We are mak­ing all re­quired re­quests to the Au­thor­i­ty's bankers to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ments

When con­tact­ed NWRHA's CEO Sal­isha Baksh de­nied that the Au­thor­i­ty could not ac­cess the US cur­ren­cy. "The claim that the Au­thor­i­ty has stat­ed it can­not ac­cess US cur­ren­cy is to­tal­ly false. There is an on­go­ing court mat­ter in­volv­ing Ms Akum Lum where­in the Au­thor­i­ty has been in con­stant dis­cus­sion with Ms Akum Lum's at­tor­neys re­gard­ing her med­ical ex­pens­es in­clu­sive of any med­ical pro­ce­dures cur­rent­ly be­ing con­tem­plat­ed. Pur­suant to these dis­cus­sions, the Au­thor­i­ty has been mak­ing all re­quired re­quests to its bankers to fa­cil­i­tate the dis­cussed pay­ments." Sun­day Guardian al­so reached out to the min­is­ter who re­ferred to the CEO's state­ment. How­ev­er, they did not say if the mon­ey would be made avail­able in time for the sched­uled surgery.