Family still seeks closure after eight years

MORE than eight years after his then wife Stacy Brown’s death at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine, Steve Brown is convinced that the legal system is too slow as he continues his battle to find closure.

“Since 2006 I have had Dorothy Lightbourne as my attorney representing the case, however the wheels of justice seem to have either stopped turning or [have] fallen off,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

“It has been about eight years now that I have been told that it is still before the courts and papers are waiting to be signed,” an obviously frustrated Brown stated.

Reports said that on July 31, 2006, Stacy, then 26 years old, was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital about 11:00 pm. At the time, she was reportedly suffering from internal bleeding. However, she later died after going several hours without being attended to by hospital personnel, according to relatives who had taken her to the health facility.

Stacy’s then husband, Brown, had proceeded with a lawsuit after her death.

“I am looking for closure in the sense that justice needs to be served at some point, because to really be in a situation like this where basically you lose a wife and then life goes on for everybody, but the people inside of the game,” reasoned Brown. “I started this journey for justice when I was a much younger person. However, the whole business of living and of course time, have taken a toll.

“It is mentally and psychologically fatiguing,” he told the Sunday Observer. “It drains one’s spirit from time to time, but what I have is resilience and inward strength.”

Brown further contended: “Whatever the outcome, I rest contented in the fact that I have not and will never give up the battle to have justice being served on a medical system, which has and continues to fail the public it was institutionalised to serve.”

“By me carrying on this battle, I hope it will encourage others who have been betrayed and bullied by the system to rise up and fight back and demand that the Government carry out its mandate of serving people in a humane and timely manner,” he continued.

Brown said that after hearing of the recent deaths at the St Catherine-based hospital, including the demise of Jason Forbes, a man who waited some 14 hours to be assisted by hospital personnel at the beginning of October before dying, he is convinced that nothing has changed in the past eight years.

“It has always been a concern of mine as to why the system has been so slow. And looking on the recent stuff that’s happening with the same Spanish Town Hospital, many cases where the people have the same case of negligence, that has caused maybe like two or three deaths in the last two or three months,” Brown reasoned. “So it’s just that the government basically have a nonchalant view towards everything.”

“It brought back memories and it brought back a lot of frustration on my part too, because I’m saying to myself, ‘this is something that just keeps on happening without any stoppage to it’,” Brown declared. “To see that after eight years the system has not changed a bit. Not one bit.

“And then, as how it is, if cases are not highlighted, then you know things put on the back burner and is a whenever, if ever, it will be resolved,” Brown continued.

Brown told the Sunday Observer that it is not that he has not been on the ball with Stacy’s case, but “that you have a limit where you can go and no more in terms of the legal system”.

He said that his son Kashron turned 16 in November and that he is doing well.

“He is adjusting, doing quite well in school,” said Brown. “He has vague memories, but he has pictures that he looks at and stuff like that. Of course, based on discussions that we have from time to time, it is kind of bad that his recollection of his mom is always going to be pictures and stories.”

Brown said that his son, understandably, questions what life could’ve been like.

He explained that Stacy had a ruptured cyst on her ovary, which led to internal bleeding.

“When she was brought to the hospital, basically, there was a long, extended waiting period. It wasn’t until a doctor passed, based on the account that I got, and saw that she wasn’t responding and then they rushed her into the operating theatre, but by then the doctor said it was way too late,” he explained.

The official cause of death, according to Brown, was hypovolemic shock, secondary to rupture of ovarian cyst with haemangioma.

“A ruptured cyst on your ovary, you shouldn’t die from that, especially at the hospital,” insisted Brown.

He however reasoned that he thinks one of the factors holding up the case is because it involves his son, who is a minor, and as such, certain procedures must be followed.

He still thinks that after eight years, the case should have been closed by now.