A Mother's Pain For Her Lost Son

A STORY OF HER LOST SON

This is a sad story of a mother who lost her son at KPH. This letter was sent to me last year 2014 when chick-v was raging across the land. She has sent me a copy of this letter recently.

She adds the following note in her email:

Ladies/Gentlemen, I have to say something as I listen to the weeping and wailing now publicly taking place. My son died at the KPH and I tried to tell you about it. Dr. Dawes tried to tell you about it. Kph and UWI and, check the other hospitals, are places to die in; no lie. Believe the people who are calling and crying to you today and try to go to KPH  and walk from the stinking drain by the gate to the blood-stained elevator that works sometimes to the wards, especially 2 & 3, where naked men lie on the brown plastic covers of the mattresses. You have to see the place to be sick. I attach my year-old letter. I die each day with shame, my hands over my face as I remember my son.  

Veronica Blake Carnegie

LETTER

 ODOUR AT KPH                                                                                            By: Mills Blake

This serves as an appeal for help to rid sections of KPH of smells.

My son, Jeremy Blake died June 24, and his death certificate read: Catheter septic; Hypertension; Cardiovascular disease; End renal failure. He could not live with all of the above plus the smells of a hospital in which he was carried.

Special thanks to Dr. Oo, Dr. McFarlane, Dr. Senior and Dr. Sutherland and the Ward Sisters of 2A and 3A. They tried to keep my son alive.

 Jeremy had to lie up to his neck in his urine and later, when he became helpless he could be found lying for hours in his faeces, vomit and urine.  I was advised to pay somebody to bathe and clean him for that was the way things were done at KPH.  I paid a student nurse $3000 for cleaning him one day and we soon found a practical nurse that knew us and she kept him clean to the day of his death.  We paid her $10,000 a week.

 Some of the attendants were disrespectful and scornfully mocked the patients. Soiled sheets, clothes, towels were not returned and many beds in the wards remained bare and the mostly helpless men would lie, sometimes naked or in diapers on the dark brown plastic that covered the mattress. Adult diapers, soap and toiletries disappeared. There was talk of ‘no water’ as the patient deteriorated and lost control of his system.  Even when the patient was receiving blood or saline, foam boxes with cold meals were left by the bed and were sometimes accidentally knocked over by disoriented patients. Relatives, friends or paid nurses assisted greatly. One day I saw my son trying to vomit in a pink bed pan which he tilted near his chin.  We handed him a small basin and he retched in that. A suffocating smell lingers here.

Another odour comes from the Maintenance crew. The place is not clean and some of the cleaners need to be managed. I watched some cleaners slopping dark brown, dirty looking water as they wipe the ward floors. They spewed what could be disinfectant on the floor before splashing with the brown water from mobile buckets. Patients who walked barefooted had black soles. I watched one young cleaner mop with one hand while the other held her IPhone. She wore a crisp uniform and a jet black shoulder length wig. As she kotched the mop stick, she used the same one hand to remove a garbage bag from a metal container near the main station and the bag burst scattering the discarded swabs.. Still on the phone, she left the mess and returned with a bag to pick up the spill. Still talking she continued slopping to the bottom of the ward. I have stood on dried vomit as I held the near skeletal frame of my son. Maintenance area has a nauseating smell.

Some of the Orderlies, Porters, Pass Givers and Security Guards need to be re-trained. At Admission some hustle patients for money to move them closer to the doctor or to the person running the 'test'. We paid $1000 to move my sick son nearer the doctor's door. I gave a porter $500 to buy a Malta. The very kind young man saw my distress, hurried back with the Malta and disappeared with my change. This area has a foul stench

Doctors, I hear, are poorly paid. Some of them hustle at KPH by bringing in private patients and by sending relatives to purchase items at their owned facilities. When Jeremy had to get Dialysis, a doctor advised us to buy a catheter for $18,000. We did at the New Kingston medical place they sent us and then they asked me to pay $30,000 for the urgently needed Dialysis. The KPH ambulance was waiting to take my son to the place. When I told them I could not afford that amount of money, my son was immediately wheeled back to his bed and in his hypertensive state; the attached bags were soon pulled out. A doctor assisted me as I called a number of centres, moving down from $30,000 to $7,700 and we were able to get 2 sessions of Dialysis done. Jeremy was twice returned to KPH to have the catheter “fixed''. The ambulance was never again available and each time we had to squeeze his 6ft3 frame in a hot taxi to Downer Avenue.

Four days before his death, my dehydrated son collapsed after an attempt to do Dialysis. The doctor at Dialysis Centre gave us an urgent letter to UWI hospital and they kept him in Emergency for ten hours and returned him by ambulance to KPH. Jeremy needed saline; the hospital had none and the doctor wrote what I should buy. Like many other relatives we drove around looking for a pharmacy that had saline. When we returned, empty- handed, we heard that someone was able to buy saline in Liguanea and Jeremy got drip.

The Doctors’ Corner at KPH smells badly. 

The most sickening smell of all was at the entrance of the KPH. The stink was overbearing and some people thought it came from the garbage drum. A little girl skipped to the drain behind the benches and began to count wrigglers and other crawling things. Her mother grabbed her away. I looked in the drain and saw the muck and the filth and like the others tried to squeeze the smell away. I called the newspapers but none was interested in the dirty, germs filled drain right at the entrance of KPH. I called Senator Bobby Montaque and told him and the following day the drains were cleaned.

At 7 am, June 25, the doctor and Sister told me how Jeremy died after their attempts to help him. I cried; thanked them, hugged them and they directed me to the morgue. The morgue was the cleanest place in the area and the manager of affairs there, Mr. Prince, showed us the very clean, cold body of my son. Mr. Prince walked us to the Administration sections that dealt with Death Certificates and everything there was meticulous.

Many people are talking about the smells of KPH. Some have already gone public regarding the unhealthy condition of the Jubilee Maternity section but I thank the hospital for admitting my son and I seek help to fix the stench. The broken hospital machines and equipment should be fixed. Patients’ sheets, towels and clothes should not be thrown away.

Broken Dialysis machines should be immediately fixed to deal with in- house patients.

KPH should have enough Ambulances and they should be properly managed. (I saw an ambulance, blaring, as it carried sound system boxes to a party)

The company which launders the hospital uniforms should be given credit and could be asked to do sheets as well.

Doctors should be properly paid so they can cut out the hustling that appears to be taking place.

Maintenance staff, janitors, porters, security guards must be retrained to work in a hospital.

 KPH should have its own super tank or well. How can they not have water in the 21st century? 

Call KPH. Their number works.

Please donate to Jamaica Medical Foundation at: jamaicamedfoundation.com

and confirmed by Mr. Michael Fraser: michael_fraser@sagicor.com