The doctor who surgically removed 17 cocaine pellets from a suspected drug mule’s stomach last December was allegedly threatened and made to performt he illegal surgery at gunpoint.Yesterday, Medical Association PRO Dr Austin Trinidade and another medical professional, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the doctor told colleagues he had done the surgery under duress at StAugustine Private Hospital.
But the patient has since died and the doctor did not know the man who held him at gunpoint, so police may never be able to charge anyone in the case. The doctor has declined to share his side of the story. The T&T Guardian called him for an interview after acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams on Wednesday said there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone.
But his secretary said he was unavailable and the doctor had nothingto say at this time, but would contact theGuardian when he is ready. But reliable sources said the doctor was forced to perform the surgery by a man who came with another man he had seen before as a patient. The patient, who was carrying the cocaine in his stomach at the time, was reportedly in severe pain.
Despite this, the two reportedly agreed to wait until the doctor had attended to all his patients. Suspecting something was not right when he began his assessment of the patient’s complaint about severe stomach pains, the doctor initially said he could not accommodate him. It was then that the patient’s companion pulled out a gun. The gunman claimed to know where the doctor and his family members lived and threatened to kill them all if he did not do the surgery and keep it secret.
The man then watched as the doctor, assisted by a single nurse, did the surgery to remove the pellets from the man’s stomach.Once all the pellets were removed, the gunman picked them up and left the building, leaving the patient behind. The doctor called an ambulance to take the patient to the nearby Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, for post-surgery care.
The T&T Guardian understands the patient had a relative who is a senior medical official there and who facilitated the swift warding of the patient, but he died there ten days later.The police and the Medical Board were reportedly informed of the threats, although the doctor was initially reluctant because he still feared for his life.
The Guardian understands new security measures have been put in place at the St Augustine hospital since the incident. The Medical Board reportedly did an unofficial probe of the incident and was provided with a video of it. The board reportedly agreed that the doctor could not be deemed to have breached any code of ethics, since he was made to perform the surgery under duress.
TRINIDADE—NO BREACH
Speaking yesterday, Trinidade said the doctor did not breach medical ethics, as he “did medically what he had to do.”
He said there is no legal requirement for the doctor to report the discovery of the narcotic. This is contrary to Attorney General Anand Ramlogan’s declaration on Thursday. During the post-Cabinet media briefing on Thursday, Ramlogan called on the police to reopen theprobe and said the doctor did not fulfil his legal obligation to report the incident to the police.
However, Trinidade contended that the Medical Board Act did not say the doctor was obligated to report the cocaine discovery.
“There is nothing in the law that says that doctors are bound, or in the code of ethics, that says doctors are bound to do this,” he said. “The only thing notifiable is that doctors should report suspected cases of rape, child abuse and things like that. It is very vague. There is no list of things that we shouldr eport.”
He said one should not be hasty to judge the doctor who did the surgery.
“It is easy for us to say on the outside he should have reported what he found, but we do not know what sort of pressure he was under and so on. We really cannot make a judgement on that, because we really do not have all of the information. I certainly never had all the information.
“But there was talk from some of his colleagues that he had been threatened,” Trinidade said.
MEDICAL BOARD: NO PROBE
In a phone interview, Medical Board secretary Prof Hariharan Seetharaman said the board did not probe the matter officially because no official report on the incident was made to them. Asked if they did an informal probe, he said no, adding this could only be done if there was a written complaint from anyone to the Office of the DPP or the police.
“If there was any criminal negligence on the part of the doctor, usually the DPP or public prosecutor would usually take action and then they would notify us. Once somebody complains that there was some infamous conduct or negligent conduct from any doctor, then we would take action from the medical board,” he said. He also explained that if the doctor did the surgery to save the life of the patient, “that comes under ‘good samaritan’ work.
“Unless there is a profit motive and they did it for saving a life and then did appropriately inform the legal authority about that, then the doctor would not be held responsible in any part of the world or any Commonwealth country,” he said. He said if the doctor had done the surgery for “clandestine motive and for profit and did not inform the police at all about some suspicious illegal thing that is happening, then according to the code of conduct it is infamous conduct.
“But still we cannot speculate. Somebody has to inform the Medical Board.”
