RINI-BORN Canadian Elissa Antonio, who mistakenly walked off a 40-foot cliff in Las Cuevas two weeks ago, and survived the fall with multiple broken bones, left Piarco at 1.00 pm yesterday in an air ambulance for Toronto, Canada for medical treatment she could not obtain locally.
The mother of two children, was due to arrive at a top trauma hospital in Toronto after 9.00 pm last night, a relative said.
The relative told Newsday that after being assessed by the ambulance crew and prepped for travel, Antonio left the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH), where she had been since the fall on the night of March 28. She left before noon screaming because of the pain she experienced while being moved.
Due to the time that lapsed the relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Antonio will have to be further assessed to determine what surgeries are required.
Unfortunately, the relative said, that since she was hospitalised, she did not undergo a CT scan because the hospital’s machine was inoperable.
Antonio had also been told that the hospital could not operate on her complex multiple fractures and that she would have had to have surgeries done overseas.
The fractures included her pelvis — broken in several places, a fractured sacrum — which connects the pelvis to the spine, a broken right leg and broken right heel.
She could not move her lower extremities and her relative fears that she could never walk again.
Antonio was not the only patient who was being treated without having CT scans. A patient in the male orthopedic ward told Newsday that he has been waiting for three weeks now to be given a CT scan. He said that he has only been receiving pain killers since he was hospitalised.
Efforts to get a comment from the POSGH on the state of the CT scan machines were futile.
Newsday was told to send any queries to the Corporate Communications department which in turn told Newsday to address communications to the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer and copy to the Corporate Communications department.
Meanwhile, the air ambulance to transport Antonio was made possible after Antonio’s friend Bre Clarke launched an online fund-raising campaign to secure CDN$56,000 of which 90 percent was to pay for the nine-hour air-ambulance flight, with a fuel stop between Piarco and Toronto. Antonio’s oneweek holiday was not covered by travel insurance.
While the full amount had not yet been secured to cover the transportation cost, fund-raisers were still being held with the promise to pay the full amount required.
As of yesterday morning a total of CDN$53,000 had been secured.
People who may want to contribute may do so at www.gofundme.
com/helpingelissa using credit cards.
Clarke told Newsday the response to the appeal was overwhelming.
Since he launched the appeal, Clarke, who also has Caribbean roots told Newsday he has received messages from dozens of Trinis who have spoken about unsatisfactory medical and nursing care, and poor working conditions at the PoSGH. Two Trinidadian- born nurses who reside in Canada, he said, begged him to get “her out of Port of Spain General as fast as possible because she will die there. That was scary,” he said.
Antonio would not complain, he said, because she was thankful for being alive, and just wanted to get back home.
“A top surgeon who saw all the media coverage,” Clarke said, “has indicated that he wants to treat her, himself.” Noting that she was not assessed for head injuries and internal bleeding, he said, “She could have died if there was some serious internal bleeding. When she gets scanned here we will know if there was any additional damage.” On Monday after the local media went public with Antonio’s fall, Clarke said, the hospital authorities offered to take her to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex for a CT scan.
However, because Antonio was leaving yesterday, the doctor treating her and herself decided not to move her twice.