Man dies after brutal attack, family blames hospital
Tonight, a Belize City family is in mourning after their relative succumbed to injuries during a robbery. Reports are that around eight-thirty last Tuesday night twenty-seven year old Juan Pineda, a cabinetmaker living on Queen Charlotte’s Street, was riding on Cemetery Road near the Lord Ridge Cemetery when two men approached him. The men hit him on the head with a blunt instrument, stole ten dollars from his pockets and took away his bicycle. Pineda made it to his sister’s house, who rushed him to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. At that time, a conscious and coherent Pineda related the incident to his family and hospital officials, but five hours later he lapsed into a coma. Pineda was later operated on, but within hours of the procedure, he died. As disturbing as that story already is, the Pineda family is now alleging that negligence on the part of the hospital is to blame for Juan’s death.
Luis Mariano Flores, Brother-in-law
“We get at the hospital and the first doctor weh attend to he was a Cuban doctor and a nurse. So after that they ker (take) him to the theatre to do the x-ray. So they bring him back to the same room, then we asked the doctor what they wah do, he say well they need the money because that operation it wah be private, then it’s five hundred dollars. That the first thing he ask, he only talk money. Afterwards, we left the guy right deh and we gone dah Ladyville look for his wife fi mek she come attend to him and so. When we come back, we left his wife right there, they got ah in a next room, but nobody left by his side and he inna pain. Then his wife come back to my house and tell me the doctor say they need to money. This dah bout round 12:30 that night, so how we could get the money. One of his brothers’s come with three hundred dollars in his hand and give it to the doctor, tell ah I bring this money. But this dah more than the money they need, so they still no operate until Wednesday around 11:00. They operate him and they have him right there, then he get inna coma, till Saturday he still inna coma, he no wake up non-at-all.
So Sunday gone and in the evening time the same doctor weh operate him, Dr. Carballez from Honduras he say, he want paper fi mek he go to speciality clinic and authorise fi mek the family ker the guy to Guatemala because that’s the only place they have all the instruments fi that kind of something weh he got. So now, the doctor give ah the paper and he tell my brother-in-law Belize no got the materials fi that kind of thing. He mi got a fever, they no have medicine to give him fi mek the fever gone. So the guy die Monday morning around 2 o’clock in the morning.”
Janelle Chanona
“Are you satisfied with the treatment your brother received at the Karl Heusner?”
Luis Mariano Flores
“No, Absolutely no. They treat him too bad, because they could have do that before that. Because he had the operation Wednesday, they could authorise fi mek he go dah Guatemala at least Friday because they can’t do nothing.”
Alvaro Rosado, CEO, K.H.M.H.
“I think it’s understandable that family members would be distraught when one of their own is suffering. One of the problems they expressed was that they didn’t think enough attention was being given to Mr. Pineda in the accident and emergency. Obviously, that’s a matter of how you interpret what kind of attention. Doctors are working, it might now seem to the layman that they’re doing anything, but they are working. The matter of the injection that was bought was also brought up. The matter of the injection that they had to buy, and that it was put in a cabinet. The injections are given on the doctor’s instructions, so when the doctor ordered it, he might not have been around immediately, so it would have been put in a safe place. We would not leave drugs just hanging around.”
