‘Doctors and nurses did not come to my rescue’
Woman claims she was badly beaten by mentally ill patient at Savanna-la-Mar Hospital
Published:Sunday | December 25, 2022 | 12:53 AMChristopher Thomas - Sunday Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
“You cannot go into a public hospital and an incident happens and you are sweeping it under the mat like it is me that do something wrong. They did not treat me good, and I could have died there and then.”
That was the disgruntled declaration from Sophia Greenfield, who is claiming that she was attacked by a patient of unsound mind while recovering from a surgical procedure at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland last month, and then ignored by the staff when she complained.
“I went there on November 15 about my hand, because I got stuck in my hand with a fish bone and it got infected and swollen. The same day I did a surgery on my finger, and I stayed over and got a drip (intravenous fluid) also. The next day, my fiancé carried some clothes for me, and I went in the bathroom to have a shower,” Greenfield shared with The Sunday Gleaner, recounting her ordeal at the Type B medical facility.
“I was naked, and this man forced himself inside, and I said, ‘What is this?’ and he said, ‘I am sorry’ and locked back the door. So I had my shower, and was putting on my clothes, and when I looked, he pushed back the door again. I said, ‘What is this?’ He said ‘I am sorry’, and I said, ‘You don’t know how to knock?’” Greenfield shared.
“He started to curse, but I paid him no mind. Afterwards, I saw two other patients went in there to shower, and it was the same thing he was doing, forcing the door to go in on them.”
She said a short while later, the man, who was also a patient there, began to assault her while she was having a meal in her bed, resulting in her suffering bruising and swelling on her head, face and arm.
“My fiancé came and brought a meal for me, and the man was sitting there cursing. My fiancé left, I started eating the food, and I wasn’t paying attention elsewhere. Then the man came and started thumping me in my head, and because my arm had in the drip, all I could do was hold my head and scream, ‘Jesus, murder!’ and there was no one to come to my rescue and help me,” said Greenfield, showing The Sunday Gleaner photos of bruises she said were from the incident.
“It was about 20 minutes that the man was beating me, and there were nurses and doctors nearby, and nobody came to my rescue. About 20 minutes after, I saw a porter run come and hold him and say, ‘What you doing?’ And after that I went to a nurse and said, ‘Can you call the police for me?’ But they did not want to call the police,” Greenfield continued, adding that she had to call her fiancé to summon the police.
“Eventually they came in, and the police were there taking my statement. The nurse said to the police that the man was of unsound mind, and the police said, ‘if he is of unsound mind, why do you have him walking up and down in the hospital, why don’t you have him tied up?’” the upset woman recounted.
“All of a sudden, everyone started rallying around me, but at the time when I needed help that man could have killed me right there and then. One or two of them started giving me attitude, but I didn’t pay them any mind because I was in there and wanted to be given treatment.”
However, when contacted, personnel at the Savanna-la-Mar Police Station told The Sunday Gleaner that they had no record of any reports concerning Greenfield’s alleged incident.
‘THESE PEOPLE DIDN’T CARE’
Greenfield’s account of her harrowing experience is the most recent in a series of alleged incidents where the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital has been accused of neglecting the care of its patients, in some cases resulting in deaths that, relatives say, could have been otherwise prevented.
The Gleaner recently reported a story on accusations brought by the relatives of one-year-old Joshua Cabana, a cerebral palsy patient who died at the hospital on October 20. Following the child’s death, the family claimed that the hospital had not been treating his case with the level of urgency it deserved, and that the staff had been giving them conflicting information concerning the cause of death.
Ingrid Grandison, a fellow Westmoreland native, also counts herself among the number of disgruntled relatives affected by alleged poor treatment at the facility ever since her father, Roland Spence, died in late 2020 under what she insists are questionable circumstances, for which she could not get answers from the hospital staff.
“For the last 20 years of my father’s life he had stopped smoking, and when he took sick and we took him over to the hospital, all they were concentrating on was that they saw something in his lungs and that it was all about COVID-19. All the while I was telling them, ‘No, it’s not COVID, it was long before COVID.’ These people didn’t care, and they tied him down on the bed, and when I asked why they tied him down, nobody gave any explanation,” Grandison said, with grief clear in her voice.
“One day when I went there, they told me he needed blood, and I went to the blood bank first to give blood before anything else, then I went to see my father. But when I asked for him, he wasn’t there,” Grandison shared. “I asked where my dad was, and they said I should go over there, over there, over there – they were sending me all over.”
Grandison said that it was not until a doctor eventually spoke to her directly that she got any indication that her father had died.
“A doctor came to me and said, ‘Ms Grandison, I was supposed to call you; your dad died this morning, and we did everything we could.’ Then I said, ‘doctor, you did not do anything, because from I brought my dad here, you treat my dad like he has leprosy. You did not do anything to save my dad,’” Grandison recalled with bitterness in her voice.
“When I went to see him, the soup I had brought in from the day before was on dad’s lips. I think they neglected my dad and he died of hunger.”
The Sunday Gleaner contacted the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital for a response to the accusations that have been brought against the facility. However, we were told that the hospital’s chief executive officer, Camile Lewin, was out of office and that no one else was available for comment.
AGAINST TENETS OF COMPASSIONATE CARE PROGRAMME
The accusations of mistreatment and poor customer service at the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital go against the tenets of the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Compassionate Care Programme, which seeks to improve clinical services, with a focus on empathetic service delivery in health facilities.
The programme, which was initially launched at several public health facilities in 2018, focuses on the recruitment, training and organising of volunteers within the public health sector to provide additional support in administering compassionate care to patients during the recovery process, or while they wait for treatment.
Eric Clarke, the chairman of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), which has responsibility for the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, admitted that while he did not have any recent reports concerning specific cases of alleged misconduct, he had heard of complaints from family members, who claimed to be unable to get concrete information about their loved ones’ status from hospital staff.
“I have heard the complaint many times, not just at Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, where people just do not know what is happening to their family, and they end up calling me to intervene, and not everyone has my number,” Clarke told The Sunday Gleaner.
“It should be something automatic that family should be kept abreast of their loved ones. But it is a problem, and we are trying to address it by beefing up customer service that can have more of that communication, while freeing up the doctors and nurses,” he added, noting that he has asked for an update regarding the latest allegations.
The WRHA chairman continued, “People should give names or follow the proper complaints procedure. But they prefer not to do anything, even after they come out of the hospital, because they worry they will be treated badly if they complain while they are in the hospital.
“We still have a big problem, not just at Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, though Savanna-la-Mar is where it is mainly showing up now with regard to compassionate care and staffing. The staff there must practise compassionate care, but I think it is a matter of going in and retraining and re-motivating them, as we are all under pressure; and how we deal with patients in that environment is very critical.”