JASON Forbes seemingly foresaw his death while lying on the floor of the Spanish Town Hospital Tuesday night, complaining about a pain in his stomach and pleading for assistance from health care workers.
When his name was eventually called on Wednesday morning and a security guard lifted him from the floor onto a wheelchair, he was dead.
“Mi belly ah hurt mi, unnu help mi nuh, unnu a guh mek mi dead,” Forbes, the father of a 13-year-old daughter, pleaded on Tuesday night, according to his sister Carmen Gunn.
His 76-year-old mother, who spent the night at the Spanish Town Hospital with Forbes waiting for him to be attended to, also tried to get some assistance for him, but was repeatedly told to sit down.
Gunn told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that, after getting to the hospital, some time after 7:00 pm, her mother was told to get Forbes registered, which she did. Gunn said that after her mother registered Forbes they sent her back out with him.
But he kept on crying, and her mother, who had suffered a stroke, said: “‘Listen, I have a stroke and my son is out there dying with his stomach, somebody need to tend to him’,” Gunn said.
“The lady who was at the desk said to her, ‘Mother, go and sit down; many persons are here’.
“So my mother turn to her and said, ‘Listen, many out here, but none dying. My son is dying’,” the obviously distraught sister told the Observer.
On Tuesday he complained about feeling a pain in his stomach and was taken to the hospital that evening. Gunn said that her mother was there with her brother, who was lying on a towel on the hospital’s floor because there was no bed or chair available, until about 9:10 yesterday morning when his name was called.
“When dem call him there was no porter there… that’s when the security guard ah push him guh inside, and that’s when him drop out of the wheelchair,” Gunn said, breaking down in tears. “Him just go down on his knee and the security find out seh him dead by the doctor dem come.”
“The hospital has not said anything more than tell my mother if she knows that her son died, and my mother said, ‘yes, mi know seh unnu did a guh sit down there and mek mi pickney dead out deh pon di hospital floor’,” said Gunn.
She told the Observer that an autopsy is going to be done, but insisted that had her brother been attended to, instead of neglected, his life could’ve been saved.
“Him distinctly tell dem seh him a guh dead, him tell dem and dem mek mi brother sit down there and dead,” added Gunn, unable to hold back tears. “It’s not like he was at home and we know him feeling the pain and he died at home. We took him to the hospital, right at the place where you feel seh him life will be saved, right there. We felt that is there is the perfect place, but it wasn’t.”
“If mi brother did dead at home, mi woulda feel better,” said Gunn. “But guess what, dem seh poor a crime, if poor a nuh crime, thief is not a crime, member mi tell yuh. Because if we never did poor my brother woulda guh a Andrews or somewhere and him life would have been spared. But because wi poor, a suh it stay.” Gunn is now worried about her mother, who suffered a stroke two years ago and “is not doing too well”.
“The little boy lay down pon the towel on the hospital floor, him cry, him seh ‘unnu help mi’ and no one,” recalled Gunn. “Until that is the result — death.”
Up to press time, the Jamaica Observer was still awaiting a response from the South East Regional Health Authority — the health ministry’s statutory body which has oversight responsibility for the Spanish Town Hospital, as well as other health facilities in St Catherine, St Thomas, Kingston, and St Andrew.
This is sad. He is not the first this happened to either.
My Condolences.
Dat bumbo need fi bun dung wid dem dutty demons call nurse and dokta…dem too regula wid dem slackness!
If me win the lotto me wudda build a school of medicine in JA and make it will affordable for all with stipulations that they have to serve 15 years in JA before dem can migrate and brain drain the country! ( don’t you all just love these ….”if me win the lotto” talk? ……..met you fi start one “if me win the lotto topic ” it could become very interesting and funny!
Schooling isn’t the problem is the attitude nuff a de dry head gal dem go inna WE hospital building wid, and de batty mouth dokta dem whey fi get say a yam send nuff a dem go school and a kerosen oil lamp dem study wid.
People love tek set pon police is time fi tek set pon de hospital dem…
My condolences goes out to his beloved mother ! What a sad horrible story!
May his blood be forever on the conscience and in the EVIL hearts of all those who failed to attend to him and treated him TERRIBLY in his last moments of life at the hospital.
I blame the government too… Improper facilities and understaffed.
The government can bring in qualified medical staff from Cuba, Africa , China etc like many CARIBBEAN countries do. They can also TRAIN more JAMAICANS at home by opening more facilites and training schools and importing top notch equipment.
Instead, DIRTY government INVESTS IN THEIR DEEP* pockets..
I hope he HAUNTS them all and they can’t sleep.
R. I. P.
PhantomPhoenix… spread the word all the public hospitals in Jamaica are basically the same….Spanish Town is the worst.I use to work there in emergency and get in trouble with doctors just because trying to help people….If they dont se any blood running they consider it not important ,if you are crying in pain they claim its a stunt/performance I use to be so angry working there. Another thing funny but true darker skin you are tend to be ignored…Thats the reason I CHANGED MY PROFFESSION. ANYWAY may this man RIP and may God bless his family that thy may find comfoft
Aud, many bad apple spoil de basket load. Sorry that you leave yu work because a bad breed coworkers. Jamaicans on a whole like fi hold people in high esteem because a dem job title while forgetting that dem is human and full a shit to.
It’s a crying shame that patients are being treated in such an inhumane way at this hospital.How dare those medics to assume that this man was not in pain. The least they could have done is to give him the benefit of the doubt and administered some analgesics. Doctors and nurses have a duty to care and they allow this man to die without assisting him in their presence. They are not fit to be nurses and doctors and should be struck off the register. I think his relatives should take it further and sue the hospital.PAIN IS WHAT THE PATIENT SAYS IT IS.
I DID NOT PROOF READ I HAVE A FEW TYPO ….TEARY EYES
When you are poor you are treated like a bird in a fawking cage. I am so mad and sad at what happened to this man. Condolences to the family.
This is a tragedy on more levels than one :sorry NOBODY should have to die like that! I feel it for his mother and family. May this young man find peace.
It don’t matter how much ppl is there waiting. It’s something call prioritizing. Them teach u in nursing school. Who to be seen first . I would sue out them rasscloth.
Anon, I wish I did see ur comment first, Spanish town don’t know what prioritizing mean, they have a long history of mismanagement and patient neglect
Similar fate happened with my stepdad, he was working at the time in Spanish town when thieves shot and killed him, he was taken to the spanish town hospital (because of course the proximity of the location)alive and because he was perceived as a gunman (a front desk nurse admitted this) he wasn’t attended to and sat with a gunshot wound and ended up dying. I tell anyone if me a dead don’t carry mi guh Spanish town let me die, and no we aren’t poor either, it’s the mentality of those who work at that hospital they have a long history of neglect
Met u know seh when mi see this dis morning innah di paper mi just feel like mi just really can’t tek no more bad news bout how Jamaicans are being treated and innah dem own country by dem own countrymen..It sad bad,what heartlessness mon, I can’t even begin to feel how his family must feel fi know seh his life could have been saved but was not. How dem Docs and nurses, admin innah dem hospital yah guh a dem bed and sleep comfatable,then wake up di next day and guh innah wuk like nuttn? Icebox deh mek up people nowadays, no heart at all, no heart.
Riches a mi fi tell u….I use to work there in the midst of it all