CONSUMED with grief, a Region Two (Essequibo Coast & Islands) hospital porter whose leg was amputated on Sunday night at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) is bitterly blaming his unfortunate circumstance on his workplace supervisor.Surendra Dhanrajie, 43, of Suddie New Housing Scheme, Essequibo Coast, claims he is a diabetic who, during last year, had two toes on his right foot amputated. He said the doctor strictly cautioned him not to wear boots.
He recalled that, one day during the month of December 2015, his boss, although aware of his health condition, arbitrarily took him off his portering duties and put him to manually weed and chop small bushes around the hospital compound for an indefinite period.

Dhanrajie said the supervisor instructed him to wear a pair of long boots, because there were pot holes with dirty water in the hospital compound, in addition to occasional hospital waste lying around.

He said he was forced to wear the boots for as long as five to eight hours each day, even in the blazing heat of the sun. Within a few days, he spotted what looked like water blisters on his left upper instep, and the friction from the long boots caused the blisters to rupture.

He said he soon developed a high temperature and would vomit often, thus his wife Shirmattie took him to see the doctor. The doctor had the foot dressed, and told him to wear only sandals.

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On his return to work, a few days later, the supervisor put him to sweep the yard. The foot became infected as the condition flared up, and he was admitted to hospital on Christmas Day. Thereafter, he was in and out of hospital. Towards the end of December, he was eventually transferred to the GPH, where he remained for the next 20 days.

Dhanrajie claimed the doctors tried their level best, but the foot had become badly infected, and so a decision was made to amputate it because it had become gangrenous.

The father of two claimed he knew all along that what the supervisor was ordering him to do was detrimental to his health, but he was afraid to refuse, for fear he would be sent off the job, and knowing that “job hard fuh get these days”.

He was transferred back to Suddie Hospital on Monday evening. His wife Shirmattie, even though ‘drained’, was busy getting him set to join an ambulance coming out of Suddie and returning today (Tuesday). There, he will have dressings done to his leg.

His wife has accompanied him from Region Two, and has been daily trekking back and forth between Timehri and the GPH, to take care of him. The cost of daily transportation to and from Timehri alone ranges between $640 and $1280, which proves very taxing on this couple, but she has no other place to stay.

From his hospital bed, Dhanrajie is appealing to the Ministry of Social Services to set up a hostel centrally located in the city, where at least one relative of persons hospitalised can be accommodated at a cost when their loved ones are hospitalised.

“At Suddie we have such a facility, but it is only for the indigenous people. I think Government should consider it and set up a place that could cater for people, regardless of race. After all, we have the same needs,” Dhanrajie pleaded, even as he sat up in the hospital bed trying to visualise what his days ahead would be like without one leg.

By Shirley Thomas