No Gov’t doctor, family pays for post-mortem
A traffic accident on Friday night has claimed the life of twenty-three year old Francisco Aldana, a labourer of Calcutta Village, Corozal District. Police say eighteen year old Ivan Castillo, son of Minister of Labour, Local Government and Sugar Industries, Valdemar Castillo, reported that around 9:30 he was on his way to Corozal town in a Ford Ranger and upon reaching between miles eighty and eighty-one he swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle. As a result he knocked down Aldana, who was walking in the same direction on the right side of the road. Aldana was rushed to the Corozal hospital and was later transferred to the K.H.M.H. in a critical condition where he died on Sunday. Castillo has since been charged with manslaughter by negligence, causing death by careless conduct, and driving a vehicle without a valid license. While it’s customary for accidents like this to form a part of the daily police report to the media, this story did not appear until today, after the family threatened the authorities to tell their story to the media. And that story once again has to do with government’s difficulties in performing the post-mortem examination required of every victim of sudden death. Aldana’s brother Juan and sister Obdulia Sanker, journeyed from Corozal to tell News 5 their travails in simply trying to bury their little brother.
Obdulia Sanker, Sister of the Deceased
“I didn’t have any transport to go to Corozal hospital to see him right away. In the morning I get to understand he was transported to K.H.M.H. I came Saturday morning to see him and he was critical.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Who is them? Who knocked him down?”
Obdulia Sanker
“Valdemar Castillo’s son, Ivan Castillo. I came to K.H.M.H. and spoke to Dr. Coleman, who told me what happened and that he is in critical condition. I mad because this accident wasn’t reported. It wasn’t passed on the news. I turned on my radio and was waiting to hear it. No friends know about this.”
Ann-marie Williams
“Why do you think you haven’t heard it on the radio?”
Obdulio Sanker
“Well, I guess it’s because he is a minister’s son. That’s all I could think about.”
Juan Aldana, Brother of the Decease
“I went to see the Ombudsman and he told me he knows the problem in the hospital because they don’t have a doctor at the moment and if I need to get the body post-mortem I will have to pay it out of my money. The Ombudsman took me to Dr. Estradabran and he’s charging me nine hundred and fifty dollars. They told me they don’t have a doctor and they don’t know when they will solve that problem, it could be today, tomorrow, it could be a week. So we decided to pay it because we can’t have my little brother just lying there, we need to bury him.”
The post-mortem on the body of Francisco Aldana was completed this afternoon by Dr. Estradabran. Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.
