Family and friends of 50-year-old Reymond Deans are demanding answers from the Ministry of Health and the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) administration, as to how his body ended up under the North Gully Bridge in downtown Montego Bay, when he was supposed to be admitted at the hospital.
“There is no words to explain how I feel,” said Deans’ wife Winsome. “How do you imagine someone would feel after they watched their husband being admitted to hospital, and while you are cooking breakfast to bring to him the following day, you get a phone call that his body was found in a gully, which is miles from the hospital?
Deans was admitted to the CRH last Saturday.
Winsome said ‘D’, as he was affectionately known, had just returned from Canada in July, where he was on the overseas farm work programme, “and he was as fit as a fiddle”.
“On Friday, while at home, he complained of feeling ill, so my daughter and I took him to the Cornwall Regional Hospital, where they gave us a paper for him to take a blood test,” she said.
By the following day, they returned to the hospital, and were informed that he had dengue symptoms and would be admitted.
“So I left and came back home where I got some of his personal possessions, and went back to the hospital. By now, he was given a bed in the observation area, and was being given drip,” she said. “I gave him some dinner I brought for him, and we spent hours with him and left the hospital about 7 p.m. on Saturday, with the intention of returning the following day,” Winsome said.
Was not mentally challenged
But on Sunday morning, relatives called Winsome, telling her that his body had been found under a bridge in downtown Montego Bay.
“I could not control myself. I broke into tears and hurriedly took a drive to the Cornwall Regional Hospital and went to his bed, but it was empty. I could only see his personal belongings lying around,” she said.
Winsome said that she asked where her husband was, but the nurse she spoke to said that she did not know.
Winsome said she now wants some answers. She said Reymond was not mentally challenged and he would not have just left the hospital without taking his things. She also questioned why he would be almost four miles from the institution.
THE STAR contacted Errol Greene, regional director for the Western Regional Health Authority, who stated that he was just returning from overseas, so he was unable to comment on the matter until he had been fully briefed.
“I am aware of the incident but I will have to get a full report and carry out some investigations before I can comment. But from what I heard, the individual left the hospital without being discharged,” Green said.
A senior public health nurse, Annmarie Graham-Menzie, says a person’s mental space can be badly affected by dengue.
“The way dengue works is that it causes intracellular fluid depletion where the platelets in the blood get depleted. When this happens, the patient will get electrolyte imbalance which can affect a person’s mental state,” she said.
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