‘It was thirst that killed him’ - Family cries foul over alleged neglect of cancer patient at Cornwall Regional Hospital

WESTERN BUREAU:

“He wasn’t getting good treatment up there at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) and he could have lived a little longer.”

That’s how a distraught Sophia Holness summed up the situation after her spouse, 66-year-old Hopeton Martin, died on Wednesday, May 20, at the Mount Salem, St James-based Type A facility, the only facility of its kind in western Jamaica.

Martin, who lived in Cornwall Courts at the time of his death, had gone to the hospital for cancer treatment, only to die after reportedly being neglected by the medical staff over several days, his family is charging.

“Pure dirt was on his body. He wasn’t being tidied off, and his tongue was black,” Holness continued. “It was thirst that killed him!”

Rachel Thompson, Holness’ daughter, was more composed but still indignant as she told The Sunday Gleaner that the family’s traumatic saga began when her stepfather went to the CRH for treatment in April.

“He went into the hospital and spent a whole entire month, then he came out, and then he visited the hospital again for chemotherapy. He couldn’t do anything for himself, and he even started to talk foolishness, so my mother took him back up there to CRH three weeks ago, and they admitted him,” Thompson told The Sunday Gleaner, the anger and pain heavy in her voice.

“After getting him admitted, my mother started to [notice] that they weren’t taking good care of him. He would have on a Pampers for three days straight, his clothes and the bed linen weren’t being changed, they weren’t giving him any water; and everybody would just sit on their phones with nobody paying attention to the patients,” Thompson added.

On seeing what was happening with her husband, Holness said she made several complaints to the hospital’s administration, making it clear that she thought he was being neglected by the staff.

“I complained that he’s not getting good treatment, and instead of treating him better, they treated him worse. That’s why I had to have a meeting with them (administration), and they promised they would look into it and make sure everything is okay with Mr Martin,” Holness recounted.

Martin would die hours after the meeting.

“A few days before he died, I saw his tongue had gotten black. When I talked about it in the meeting on the Wednesday morning, they said it was the porridge that he drank that stayed on his tongue and got black; but if the nurses were giving him water, as a sick man not moving, wouldn’t the water take off the porridge grains from his tongue?” she questioned. “But he wasn’t getting any water, nothing to drink. When I went there and gave him a little water, he was coughing, so he was dying for thirst.”

Contacted by The Sunday Gleaner, Dr Delroy Fray, clinical coordinator at the CRH, said he was not aware of any claims of neglect by Martin’s family.

‘No Evidence of Neglect’

“From my investigation, I don’t see any evidence of neglect. When I told the doctors there was a question of neglect, they were in shock,” he said. “The issue, I learned, was an issue of the family wanting to do some nursing care. They were given the permission, and then he died before they were able to do that. There is no issue of neglect, from what I see.”

The family said the autopsy showed that Martin had died from the cancer, but were unable to say whether evidence of their claims of neglect were noted as they were not able to fully understand the report.

The treatment that Martin allegedly received is the latest in a recent series of complaints about poor treatment of patients at the CRH.

The complaints have added another blot on the facility, which has had a significant portion of its operations outsourced or scaled down since 2017 as a $3.5-billion restoration project got under way to correct, among other things, a noxious fumes issue that was affecting staff and patients. The work is expected to be wrapped up by the end of the year.

Thompson said that the neglect her stepfather reportedly suffered at the CRH is not a new concept to her, as she had suffered similar mistreatment at the medical facility last year.

“When I was up there to have my baby in April 2019, I had a private nurse, and the nurse was on another ward doing something. I was in pain for hours, and none of the nurses there knew I was in pain,” Thompson recalled bitterly. “My mother had to call another nurse, and if you saw how that nurse dealt with me that night! That nurse dealt with me bad.”

Errol Greene, the regional director of the Western Regional Health Authority, which oversees the CRH, said that his administration does not condone abuse or neglect of patients or anyone else who seeks services from the CRH or any other hospital under its mandate.

“There is a complaints mechanism in place, and we would encourage our patients and other persons using the hospital to use that system, because that is the only way their matter will be addressed. Anybody who complains about any hospital in my region, I would be happy to speak to them and investigate it,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

“We get people from time to time who say they are not getting the attention they think they should be getting, but if they are getting neglected, that’s another matter. We don’t encourage abuse or neglect of patients, so if that is being done, give me those instances and we will deal with them,” Greene added.

But such words ring hollow for Holness, who says she has not been doing well since Martin’s passing.

“Do you think that promise means something to me now, seeing how my husband is dead? To be honest, my head is so heavy right now, and I’m so confused,” she said.

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