NARESH Ramotar, the six-year-old boy stabbed in the left eye with a pencil by another pupil of Strathspey Primary School, East Coast Demerara on Monday, may have to be medivaced to Trinidad for corrective surgery.

That would be necessary to save the injured eye, his grandfather, Harantak Harbahadur told the Guyana Chronicle Thursday evening.
A surgical operation was performed on the child at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) on Wednesday, two days after he suffered the injury and doctors were, at the time, concerned about prospects for the restoration of his vision.
However, a decision has now been made to have him flown to Trinidad, and the logistics are being worked out.
Meanwhile, relatives are disappointed at the initial response by the class teacher, claiming that she took no action to get the patient to hospital.
It was his parents who had to rush to the school on learning of the incident and take him to the Melanie Damishana Health Centre, on the East Coast Demerara, too.
But, in what sounds, pathetically, like a tragedy of errors, relatives related other acts of seeming negligence as they sought to get attention for Naresh.
A relative explained that two other boys, allegedly the class bullies, were pulling and tugging at each other over a lead pencil when Naresh, who was sitting next to them got stuck in the eye.
At the time, the headmistress was not at school, on account of illness and, when the incident was reported, the teacher who was also acting for the designated Grade One Class colleague did nothing.
An aunt said, when the family arrived at the school and saw Naresh, fluid was leaking out of the white of the damaged eye and they became terrified because the teacher was taking no action and they had to whisk him away to the health centre.
However, to their horror, the staff there merely covered up the eye with waterproof dressing and told the father to take him home.
The boy had a bad night with his swollen eye as he cried out for pain, vomited and refused to eat.
The aunt recalled that his parents spent a restless night, only praying for morning to take their child to the GPHC.
On Tuesday morning, very early, they returned with the child to the Melanie Health Centre and begged the staff to give them a referral document to take to the GPHC.
Although they got the certificate marked ‘emergency’ on it, the family, instead of taking the child to the Accident and Emergency Unit, took him to the Eye Clinic, so he was not seen until Tuesday afternoon.

Immediate surgery
Then he was examined by Dr. George Norton who determined that it was an emergency and recommended immediate surgery.
With the latter’s intervention, things began to progress and the child was prepared for theatre. But something appeared to have gone wrong and surgery was no longer performed that day, despite the relatives’ pleadings.
The boy was taken into a ward and admitted pending operation the following day and he remains warded at the GPHC.
The doctors’ prognosis, though, has caused some concern and the boy’s parents are praying for a miracle.
The relatives said it was disclosed, to them, that had the surgery been done the same Monday the child was stuck, his chances of saving the eye would have been greater.
Two days later has resulted in considerable more damage being done to the eye and its tiny delicate nerves.
Meanwhile, on learning of the incident, the headmistress, who was on leave, is said to have made contact with the officials at the Region Four Department of Education and a blame game has since been in progress surrounding messages between Region Four and Georgetown.
And, as Guyana observes Blind Awareness Month Naresh would have his name written into the register of Guyana’s visually impaired persons.

(By Shirley Thomas)