The Jean Anglais Shooting

A senior Nurse practitioner at the St George’s General Hospital has expressed grave concerns with some of the doctors recruited in Cuba by the government and brought in to serve local health institutions.

The nurse called THE NEW TODAY on the weekend to detail a number of serious complaints from some of her own colleagues as well as a few doctors at the General Hospital who are afraid to openly express their reservations about some of the Cuban medical personnel.

She called on the government to be more vigilant in the recruitment process as some of the Cuban doctors are very unscrupulous in their attitude towards service in the medical profession.

She made mention of “a big Cuban racket” running in the hospital through exploiting patients for money.

She identified one Cuban doctor by name who was not a Gynecologist but a key figure in the racket in which he charged local women thousands of dollars for surgery.

According to the nurse, this doctor left the Cuban Mission that was sent by Havana on assignment and was attached to a local health facility in the city and would get his colleagues at the General Hospital to use the Theatre and government supplies to do surgeries for him for a fee.

“He would take those patients, charge them about $11, 000 to $12,000.00 and then get the Gynecologist on Mission in the Hospital to do the surgery.

The nurse also made mention of “a drama” which took place at the hospital involving a patient who was diagnosed as having a hernia.

She spoke of seeing the medical form which indicated that the lady was admitted for Hernia repair.

“When he (the Cuban doctor) reduced the Hernia, he started to say the lady had a big uterus and that he was having problems closing the abdomen and did a Hysterectomy (remove the uterus). When the lady woke up, the lady asked them if the Hysterectomy was done. This is the kind of racket the Cubans run.

The senior nurse accused some of the Cuban doctors of bringing patients into out-patient clinics and exploiting and demanding large amounts of money from them for medical care.

She made mention of a Cuban doctor who abandoned the Mission and opened up an office in the south of the island.

She accused that particular doctor of exploiting patients for money while working at the General Hospital.

“One time in Princess Alice (hospital in Mirabeau, St Andrew), they made her give back a lady her $100 bill. This is the kind of thing the Cubans do,” she said.

On the issue of suspicions about the qualifications of some of the Cuban medical people, the Senior Nurse referred to an individual who is supposed to be a specialist in Internal Medicine.

“… You have to wonder if the person is a medical doctor”, she said, adding that his management of patients “is poor”.

According to the staffer at the General Hospital, there was another Cuban sent to Grenada as a gynecologist but stated that “the guy can barely do a surgery.”

She also said that another Cuban came to the island as a Sonographer to do ultrasound but “the guy was not a Sonographer – he was a radiographer” and eventually returned to Havana after one year of service.

In addition, she said that another female came as a Sonographer but could not do the work and identified another who came as an ICU doctor.

“I don’t know if he is even a doctor. When that guy was in ICU – don’t you dare send a patient to ICU – death … poor management,” she told THE NEW TODAY.

The senior nurse cited a case in which a male got into a motor vehicle accident and had a fracture of the jaw and had some blood in the mouth.

She spoke of seeing a Cuban doctor on duty who was passing near her with a laryngoscope in hand – an instrument used to intubate a patient.

A few minutes later, she said she heard someone gurgling and when the curtains were pulled back, the Cuban doctor was seen trying to intubate the individual who had multiple fractures of the jaw.

She later raised the issue with a local doctor who told her: “For intubation you must move the jaw. What happened … he tried to intubate the patient and with the moving of the jaw all the blood vessels would have broken … the man’s face was full of blood.

The nurse also said that during the ordeal she noticed that the Casualty officer was suctioning out blood from the patient’s mouth.

She went on to say that this Cuban “specialist had the habit of wanting to treat a patient in ICU anytime the person is there for 8 days with (Christo phony).

She said this particular Cuban doctor always wanted to engage in (Christo phony) on patients who other doctors know do not meet the criteria, and always insisted on using the procedure on moribund patients who even his other colleagues know will never recover.

“There was a lady there he wanted to do (Christo phony) for the patient. He took the patient, went to the Theatre to do (Christo phony) and around 7 o’clock the night the ICU nurse on duty indicated that the patient had been bleeding.

“When I went looking in the system the patient’s (qualculation) – that is to deal with the bleeding – everything was deranged.”

In reviewing the blood, she said it was discovered that the patient’s electrolytes were imbalanced for more than one week.

The nurse pointed out the patient’s heart just stopped one morning as nothing was done to address the problem.

She also related a few cases in which some patients will go into the Theatre looking “pretty ok” under this Cuban doctor and in short order the nurse on duty will report that “the patient’s heart rate will slow down and then they die.”

She said the conclusion reached is that some of the patients died from electrolyte imbalance as the Cuban doctor in charge “isn’t doing anything good there.”

The nurse pointed out that under the watch of this particular Cuban doctor, it was common for patients to go into ICU, come back out and return back to the Unit due to poor management.

She also told THE NEW TODAY that things are now better at the Hospital with a Nigerian doctor who is now in charge.

“Patients do well, patients are able to come out of ICU (alive),” she said.

The Nurse warned that a lot of the Cubans who abandoned the Mission and are now working privately on the outside of the Hospital system “are very questionable characters.”

The influx of Cuban medical personnel to Grenada started under the 1979-83 left-leaning People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) of late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop who had cultivated close ties with Havana when late President Fidel Castro was running the communist island.