Kenrick Persad, who was reported missing a week ago, after security guards at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope mistook him for an intruder and kicked him out of the hospital, has been found unconscious at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. His relative Alicia Mike-Thompson, who had been searching for Persad since last Wednesday, said a doctor at the Port-of-Spain hospital called her on Sunday evening to tell her he was at the hospital, with serious head injuries.
Mike-Thompson told the T&T Guardian she was angry because after the guards at Mt Hope took Persad outside and left him along the Priority Bus Route, he somehow ended up in Princes Town. There he was arrested by police and taken to the St Ann’s Mental Hospital, where he was beaten by mentally-ill patients. She charged that not only was the hospital negligent but so were the police.
Had a doctor not found her number on Persad, she said, she would still be looking for him, because the St Joseph police failed to investigate the report she made at that station last Wednesday. “They told me they would put out an APB, but how come the Princes Town police arrested him and sent him to St Ann’s, but they did not know he was missing?” she asked.
Mike-Thompson is now seeking answers as to how a patient who went to the hospital seeking help could end up in this position. She vowed “not to leave it like this.” “If you see the condition of this man’s face. The doctor said because of the first injury he was originally brought to Mt Hope for, he has bleeding on the upper right side of his head.
“The other injuries he suffered, because of the lackadaisic attitude of staff at Mt Hope, is worse. The doctor said there is a lot of bleeding going on in the brain and he may have suffered some permanent brain injury.” Better known as Robin, Persad, 37, is the father of one of her daughters. He lives in New Village, Point Fortin, and works with the Point Fortin Borough Corporation.
Mike-Thompson said on the evening of June 24, Persad fell and hit his head as he got out of a taxi. She said Persad was taken to the nearby hospital, but was transferred to by ambulance because staff there could not deal with his injuries. He spent Monday night at the San Fernando General Hospital before being sent, again by ambulance, to Mt Hope on Tuesday to see a neurosurgeon. There is a shortage of neurosurgeons in the country and none are attached to San Fernando hospital.
Mike-Thompson went to look for him at Mt Hope around 2 pm last Tuesday, but said, “No one could find any record of him being brought there. Someone known as the ‘ambassador,’ who is supposed to know where the patients are at all times, was unaware of his whereabouts. “About 4 pm I saw him being escorted by two Allied Security guards and told the ambassador this is the person I was speaking about.”
Mike-Thompson said the ambassador was very flippant, saying, “Oh, San Fernando brought him, but when we went looking for him to put him on a ward, we could not find him.”
She said Persad was disoriented and she was told that he had blood clots and a part of his brain was swollen, but further tests would determine whether or not he needed surgery. She begged nurses to restrain him on a bed to prevent him from wandering away again, she said, but was told that was done only with violent patients. The nurses assured her they would ward him on a lower floor, so he would not fall over the balcony.
When she left at 4.30 pm that day, Persad was on a gurney in the emergency area, known as the Minor OT Unit, but around midnight she got a call to say Persad had gone missing. At the hospital on Wednesday, she said, chief of security Anand Maharaj told her two guards remembered seeing a man in overalls wandering after midnight. They had taken him to the emergency department to find out if he was a patient.
“But staff on duty could not find his files, so the guards escorted him out of the compound and by the nearby bus stop.” Mike-Thompson said she reported him missing at the St Joseph Police Station on Wednesday, and the case was assigned to a WPC Thomas. She returned to the station with photographs of Persad on Thursday and called the station on Friday, when a female officer told her the investigator would be on duty on Saturday.
“She suggested I call back then. I called back several times on Saturday and was unable to speak to the investigator, who did not report for duty at one time, and had stepped out several times after.” On Sunday, she was told Persad had been found. A spokesman at Mt Hope’s Customer Service Department said on Monday she was not aware of the incident. She referred the T&T Guardian to the communications manager, a Mr Mahabir, but several calls to his extension were not answered.
Contacted yesterday, Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan said he was unaware of the case, but had asked Chief Medical Officer to investigate it and get back to him.