Returning to themes that disgrace and destroy a nation

Every so often I return to lamentations that any Guyanese that loves his/her country would find depressing. I have constantly revisited abominations like clogged drains that cause unbearable floods even during light rains and the horror story of the Accident and Emergency (A&E) facility of the Georgetown Hospital. Here I am again because of what I have witnessed one more time On Wednesday morning, I parked my car on the parapet outside of the home of Mr. Harold Davis, who the younger folks would not know, but was in charge of GuySuCo for a long time under President Burnham. I needed to make a purchase at Medicare pharmacy directly opposite to where Mr. Davis lives on New Market Street, between Camp and Thomas Streets. As I locked the car, and began to walk, my eyes gazed at the gutter in front of Mr. Davis’ house. The mud was mountainous. The silt in this gutter is not near to the top but filled right up. As I was about to cross the street into Medicare, its manager was crossing too and she enquired what I was looking at. I pointed her to the horrible sight in the gutter with the warning that should the rains come, no way the yards and houses on that street could be saved from a deluge. The next morning (Thursday) it rained heavily and New Market Street had its deluge. It is indeed sad and tragic that Guyanese have to live like this. A few years ago, I made the identical observation about another place not too far from what I saw last Wednesday. And I wrote about it. That time it was Shanta’s Puri Shop on New Market Street at Camp Street. The gutter was filled to the top with mud. I wrote then that should the rains come, that restaurant would be flooded and that did occur. The entrance was fitted out with sandbags. What happens in Georgetown is that when the rainy season comes it brings devastation unrelated to unusual thunderstorms because the downpours have no outlet due to clogged gutters and alleyways. It is simply a nightmarish future for victims. How can citizens and small business people accept this permanent destruction for which they are not to be blamed? It is permanent because once the mountains of mud remain homes and business places will get flood waters. It is totally misleading to lay blame on the City Council. The municipality does not have the manpower and money to undertake that Herculean task. But PPP cynicism perpetuates the nightmare. My interpretation is that the PPP’s judgement is that the opposition controls the City Council, Georgetown is not the PPP’s constituency, so let the mud remain. And the devastation lives alongside an ocean of high rise buildings and a soon to be built Marriott Hotel. As we are on New Market Street let us travel east and visit the Georgetown Hospital. Are the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News on a vendetta against this institution? In the Thursday edition of both papers, the hospital got poor coverage and the reporting was about the facts and nothing else. The Stabroek News quoted the wife of a robbery victim as saying that despite his terrible injuries he had to wait a long time before he was treated. He was attacked in the uncivilized hours of Tuesday morning and the paper reported that when its reporter went to A&E at 9am the next day on another incident, the victim was sitting in a wheelchair, “his face was so badly swollen his eyes were almost closed.” Ten years ago, the Guyanese nation read about similar abominations. Six years ago, the daughter of my neighbour told me her father, the victim of a robbery, died of internal bleeding because A&E took too long to treat him. His restaurant was invaded by a lone gunman and he was shot. Six years ago, I wrote about that. We are into 2012 and look what the Stabroek News observed. The Kaieteur News carried two items on the hospital for that edition. In one, there is the opening line; “Two mothers reportedly experience ‘pure terror and horror’ at the Georgetown Hospital.” Then there is the report, quoting an official that the hospital lacks an important drug that prevents blindness and that has “caused a number of patients to lose sight.” Why is this country a tragedy? For two reasons among others. Amidst ostentatious wealth, look what happens to our poorer folks. And these human atrocities are never-ending. Is this a dead country?