By: Shemar Alleyne
Family members believe 76-year-old May Portsmouth – who has been recorded as the country’s latest COVID-19 death – died as a result of a wrongfully-administered injection, and not the novel coronavirus as is being claimed by health officials.
Portsmouth of Friendship, East Coast Demerara (ECD) was on Monday evening announced to the media as the country’s 16th COVID-19 death – even before her family was informed of the diagnosis.
The glitch in protocol has left the family suspicious and concerned that the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation may be covering up the true cause of the woman’s death.
On July 3, the elderly woman went to a private hospital for her usual medical checkup. There, she underwent a series of tests where it was revealed that she was in good health.
On July 4, she was rushed to the GPHC after she fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a mild heart attack.
Doctors ran some tests on the woman; she was then treated and sent home.
After returning home, the woman experienced a seizure and was taken back to the public hospital the following day.
Lester Portsmouth, the victim’s son, told this publication that when his sister took their mother to the GPHC, the doctors there requested her records from the private medical institution.
After viewing the records, the GPHC doctors informed the family that the woman suffered a mild heart attack and needed an injection which cost $80,000.
“My sister consulted with my other sister overseas, and she said if it is going to get her better, let them give her the injection. They gave her the injection, and my sister went outside for 45 minutes, and somebody come outside and [told] her to come inside back and told her that her mother just died,” the son explained.
“How she dead from coronavirus and she was perfectly [fine] when she go in there, and they gave her the injection, and when my sister go in there, they said she dead. How come she dead from coronavirus?”
In light of those circumstances, the family believes there might be a cover-up.
His suspicion is compounded by the fact that the Public Health Ministry has not asked them to go into quarantine nor tested relatives for the virus.
“I think it is a cover-up because if somebody died from COVID-19, would you notify the family when the results [did] come out, and you have the family number so that they can stop the spread. I don’t understand that, and I find it very hard to believe that,” the son reasoned.
“She fell down from the step, and she had her complications when she [fell], and they gave her something wrong and killed her and now saying it’s COVID.”
The GPHC nor the Ministry of Public Health has issued a statement responding to the family’s concerns.
