Tonight we continue to look at the terrifying events on the night of June 10th at the San Ignacio Community Hospital.
New portions of a recording secretly made in the de-briefing 36 hours after the attack have emerged. Jules Vasquez has those for us and looks at how they fit into a larger picture where the hospital staff had something like a mass voiding of confidence in police and health authorities:
When police came to inspect this broken door that a gang affiliate had punched through - they apparently didn't inquire to find out about the night of terror inside the "A & E" that led to this.
Reporter: "But can you definitively say that in their report there was not details of everything else happening that the police should have picked up on?"
Monday June 17
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I will check on that to see, I will follow up on that and by tomorrow I'll have a response for you but like I said, what has been presented to the police was a damage to property case, I can see what other information was provided at that time."
Three days later, Minister Musa still hasn't provided that answer - and that's because police didn't inquire further and no police report was made by the medical staff because - due to long neglect - that staff has lost trust in authorities.
The June first invasion wasn't the first to be ignored:
Voice of: Medical Professional
"The incident of such had happened already. So basically nothing was put in place."
Voice of: Doctor on Shift
"Nothing. They just said, hand over report. We didn't hear about a report any more. Must have put it under the rug or under a pile, and that's it."
"And legit, nobody came to ask us, or ask me, or anybody, ask unu, how you guys are? Unu ok? Unu mi get hurt? Nobody!"
And after June first, that pattern was repeated:
Voice of: Doctor on Shift
"Second time it happened nobody showed up, nobody asked if we're ok, we di do ok, (if) we get hurt. Monday reach. Life di goh on. Just submit a report. That's it. You understand? Weh that shows you? You don't have support from the institution, you don't have support from your supervisors, you don't have support form nobody! So at the end of the day, they just leave you there, you fend for yourself, if you dead, they kill you…who knows? They will find somebody else tomorrow."
That feeling of disposability is what led the Doctors to not report it to police - they had already done so to their ministry and there was no detectable response:
That abiding distrust and certainty of being ignored is what's really what's at issue in a system that seems to be broken. And that's what has the politicians in a tizzy trying to reconstruct the timeline and re-assess blame:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"How can you act if you don't know, if your child misbehaves and nobody tells you, is it a failure of you?"
Jules Vasquez
"No, but something is broken in the Ministry of Health."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"But the ministry, the problem was, is that these doctors were terrorized by these people and were afraid to speak out."
Jules Vasquez
"The Commissioner said he found it out on the Beef!"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"But we did not find it out on the beef we did not!"
Jules Vasquez
"Well you and the commissioner got different memos."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We found it out from within the Ministry Of Health, when they finally told the Ministry Of Health."
"And I called the commissioner and I said we need to act on this immediately."
Well that's false, and we know that because...
Tue, Jun 11,
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Um like I said I am just made aware of the veracity of this incident when Jules Vasquez brought it up on the Beef yesterday morning."
And again the leaked audio we got on June 9th was from a meeting with the Hospital Administrators - on Monday June third.
But, still, there was no action until after we reported it on June 10th - because the Ministry of Health apparently made no attempt to engage police:
Monday June 17
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"And so I know that there's a lot of examination going on in terms of the timeline in which this information was provided but let me say that it was not provided to the police it was provided to a media outlet."
Courtney Menzies:
"But they had a meeting with the Ministry of Health."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Afterwards, yes."
Courtney Menzies:
"Like two days after the incident."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"You're inserting a new timeline, something that did not come to police, so we can only activate and we did so very swiftly, the moment it came to the police."
Courtney Menzies:
"But he's the deputy director of hospital services, they had a meeting with him, why didn't he relay the information to the police?"
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"You'd have to ask him."
