By JADE RUSSELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
jrussell@tribunemedia.net
A FATHER whose family claim a Princess Margaret Hospital surgeon admitted damaging a vein during an operation, has died, just days after an air ambulance company offered to fly him to Florida for treatment free of charge.
Lamond Brice’s family has accused PMH of robbing him of his last chance at survival by stalling on providing all of the required documentation needed for his transfer.
The Public Hospitals Authority yesterday offered its condolences and said it had continued to deal with the family’s requests within established medical, administrative and procedural requirements for the proposed transfer.
But, fighting back tears, Mr Brice’s aunt Malaya Curry said yesterday: “They knew what they were doing. “They just let him lay and die for a month.”
Instead of celebrating the possibility of his transfer, the family is now mourning his death on Friday, aged just 42.
Ms Curry said she expected to arrange his move to Florida, hoping doctors there could restore him to the vibrant man he once was. Now she is trying to find money for his funeral.
On October 8, Tropic Air Rescue president Anthony Marinello told The Tribune the company was willing to transfer Mr Brice free of charge, provided Jackson Health System had made arrangements to accept him and all the necessary paperwork had been provided by the PMH.
Mr Brice was admitted to PMH on September 3 for surgery to remove what his family said doctors had identified as a non-cancerous mass in his stomach. His condition worsened after the operation, and his relatives said doctors later told them his intestines were dying.
Ms Curry has said that when she pressed for answers, the head surgeon told her a vein had been damaged during the first operation. “He said, ‘I am sorry. I made a mistake,’” she told The Tribune last month.
The family said doctors tried to repair the damaged vein using one from his thigh, and that a later operation to restore his intestines failed. Doctors then told them nothing more could be done, the family said. Relatives had been seeking to have him transferred abroad for an intestinal transplant.
Ms Curry said the family was still waiting for his full medical report. She claimed she learned only after his death that he had been bleeding after his first surgery and that his body had begun to rot after the final operation. She alleged doctors withheld those findings because they feared being held accountable.
She also alleged that the Public Hospitals Authority failed to send all the necessary documents to Jackson Health System and gave the family an incomplete letter needed to renew Mr Brice’s passport. She said the transfer was further delayed while the family tried to arrange transport.
“They failed him 100 percent,” she said. “Because after all they did to him and still, they never got him any help.”
Tropic Air Rescue offered to transfer Mr Brice after Mr Marinello read of his plight in The Tribune.
When The Tribune shared the news with Ms Curry, she broke down in tears.
“It’s a miracle,” she screamed, and said her nephew did not deserve to die.
She recalled spending nights at the hospital watching his condition deteriorate.
“I thought nobody was listening, but somebody was listening,” she said.
But Mr Brice could not be airlifted because the necessary paperwork had not been sorted.
Yesterday the PHA said it remained available to support the family.
The PHA has previously said it complied with transfer-related requests, including sending the required information and documents to the receiving hospital, and that it was waiting for the family to complete the next steps.
Mr Brice leaves behind a 14-year-old daughter. Ms Curry said the teenager had been frightened by her father’s ordeal and was now afraid of falling ill and being admitted to hospital herself.
She said Mr Brice had been happy to have the first operation because he believed it would bring him relief. He never imagined it would cost him his life, she said.
Ms Curry said neither PMH nor Health Minister Dr Michael Darville had contacted the family since his death.
The family said last month that it was seeking legal action over the alleged negligence.