Ministry of Health Says Clinic that Treated Baby Ricardo Was ‘Non-Functional’

Marvin Manzanero

The clinic which treated five-month-old Ricardo Quintero is shut down tonight, following an investigation by the Ministry of Health. Following the departure of the original owner a few months ago, the clinic continued operations even though its sole nurse was not licensed to practice her profession and the manager had no sort of medical qualification whatsoever. The clinic was even providing medication without pharmaceutical license. But the Ministry of Health’s capacity for inspection is limited and in the time it took between their inspections, this case came to light. Director of Health Services Dr. Marvin Manzanero, in updating News Five today, cautioned patients of private clinics that these are regulated for licensure by the Ministry, Nursing Council and other relevant organizations and they must be questioned and flagged to avoid future incidents which could, as in this case, be fatal.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“We did have to do an investigation from different aspects because the clinic functioned as a clinic; it had a pharmacy, and so we had to go and do different aspects to that investigation. The pharmacy does not have a pharmacist, so that didn’t have any authority to be selling medication. As I understand it that pharmacy has closed down; we actually had to go in last week and remove the medication – I think only over-the-counter medications were kept at the facility. While the clinic was open there wasn’t actually a doctor in that clinic; we had thought there was a doctor when we went to do the investigation. [We] reached out to the person who had been there before; the person said they had not been at the clinic for a good amount of time now. And we also had somebody who is a nurse, apparently, but doesn’t have a license to practice as a nurse. So in theory, the clinic didn’t have any validity in terms of being able to function as such. as I understand it, and I just spoke with the person in charge of the PCP area in Independence, the clinic is non-functional as of today.  Whenever you go to a private facility, you have to ensure – and you have all right to ask as a patient – where is the pharmacist, because a pharmacy should not be giving you medication if there is not a pharmacist; where is the license of the doctor; where is the license for the nurse – and a nurse is not allowed to prescribe. So there are many things that have been done wrong for the most part, I think we have to acknowledge that as a Ministry; but we have limited human resources to be policing every single facility across the country. And even when we go and do the policing, we give recommendations; by the time we come back it may take three to six months because there are so many facilities that are opening up across the country. So it has to be a joint effort, I think; whenever people find any anomaly within the private system, they should be able to flag it to us, so that we may be able to take actions we are warranted.”