Belize City Man Takes Legal Action against K.H.M.H.A.

Irma Jean Marie Samuels

Legal action is being taken against the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Authority for malpractice and negligence. Belize City resident Floyd Reneau says that the doctors at the K.H.M.H. failed to warn him and his common-law, fifty-four-year-old Irma Jean Marie Samuels that she had a precancerous condition.  According to Reneau, Samuels was hospitalized in November 2017 at the K.H.M.H. after she began experiencing complications with her stomach.  She was examined and underwent surgery.  Reneau was told that Samuels was fine, and follow-up appointments were scheduled.  The doctor reportedly failed to keep those appointments and Samuels’ condition deteriorated.  In June 2018, she was rushed to the K.H.M.H. and was told that there was no record of her as a patient. A frustrated Reneau decided to take Samuels to the U.S. where tests were run and twenty-two hours later she was diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Irma Jean later passed away on June twenty-third of this year. Reneau says that if the doctors at the K.H.M.H. had properly carried out their responsibility, Samuels might have had a fighting chance.

Floyd Reneau

Floyd Reneau, Alleges Malpractice

“She went into the surgical procedure. Little over twelve o’clock until five-thirty the following morning. The doctor exit the emergency room stating that she is okay; she is fixed up. Gave her a following appointment of two weeks. She been in the hospital for two weeks so two weeks prior to that we came back here for a follow up check up. The physician was Dr. Gutierrez. He was not in. They stated that they will give us a new appointment, that they will call us back to give us that new appointment. That was not done. I took my wife back home to start treating her, feeding her healthy food. She gain her energy back. She gain her weight back. Still waiting for a copy of the biopsy because they took a mass from her stomach. What was the condition of the mass we did not know. So we are still trying to figure it out. So we kept coming back to no avail. Six months later she got sick. The twenty third of June 2018, she got sick again. She was rushed back here. When she got here, the doctors did not have any file on her. They did not have any information on her. Two other doctors kept tracking down the physician. We finally found him. Three days later, he stated, “I don’t remember giving her surgery.” I said, “Yes you did.”