THE family of former newspaper advice columnist and social events promoter, Janett Sinclair, says that the lack of resources at the Spanish Town Hospital contributed to her sudden death last Tuesday.

Observer Online reported Tuesday afternoon that Sinclair, promoter of the annual Miss Teen Jamaica and Mini Miss Jamaica contests for teenaged and pre-teen girls, respectively, was pronounced dead at the Spanish Town Hospital, to which she had been taken in her car after screaming that she was dying.

The car was driven by a friend, veteran dub poet Keith Shepherd, who was taking her to Old Harbour on an errand, when she started shouting of feeling pain and screaming “mi dead, mi dead, mi dead”.

He said that by the time she was checked into the hospital, she was already dead. However, he insists that she was unconscious when they reached the hospital, and apparently died while they waited some 15 minutes for the hospital staff to find a stretcher to carry her into the hospital.

The Jamaica Observer tried to get a comment from CEO of the hospital, Peta-Kaye Sinclair Hamilton, but was informed that she was out for the day. We were also told that Senior Medical Officer, Eidel Brown, would assist, but he did not respond.

Sinclair’s daughter, attorney-at-law Courtney Foster, the multi-award- winning teenage charity fund-raiser of the 1990s, told the Sunday Observer that she learnt that her mother died while waiting for the hospital staff to find the stretcher.

Shepherd, the father of Jamaican dub poet/actor Sheldon Shepherd of the No- Maddz performing group and star of the Jamaican movie, “Better Mus’ Come”, said that he felt the same way.

He said that he and Sinclair and two of her assistants were in the car, when she started acting up. Her daughter, Peta Gaye Foster, confirmed that she suffered from a heart problem as well as high blood pressure.

“We know that sometimes she suffers from dizziness, and she started shouting, ‘Mi dead, mi dead, mi dead’. I turned the car around and drove her to the hospital. But when we got there, there was no stretcher to put her on to carry her into the building, so she stayed in the car,” he explained.

Shepherd said that one of Sinclair’s assistants who was travelling with him in the car, felt her pulse at the hospital and was convinced that she was still alive up to that time.

“After they took her out of the car, I drove the vehicle to the car park and walked back. When I came back I heard that she had been pronounced dead,” he said.

Shepherd said that Sinclair, who also staged a number of fund-raising events, promoted a number of events hosted by Foster, who was at school at Vaz Prep and later at Campion College, to assist needy facilities like the Walker’s Place of Safety, and the Curlin Johnson Basic School in Kingston.

In an interview in the souvenir magazine for her last event, Miss Teen Jamaica 2015/16, at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, on July 26, she said that, after 40 years of promoting these shows she had considered retirement, but it was too much of a difficult decision to make.