Robby Ramcharitar, the man allegedly assaulted by police on a Facebook video was sent to the St Ann’s Mental Hospital on Saturday night before promptly being sent back to San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) a few hours later. Ramcharitar, who has been living at the SFGH for months, was referred to the St Ann’s institution by a psychiatrist at the San Fernando facility. At around 10.30 pm on Saturday he was taken in an ambulance, along with a nurse and attendant.
Medical Chief of Staff at the SFGH Anand Chatoorgoon said he was flabbergasted when he was informed on yesterday that the St Ann’s hospital had turned Ramcharitar away. He said Ramcharitar had been given a psychiatric evaluation by a San Fernando doctor and it had been decided that he should go to St Ann’s as the south psychiatric unit was overcrowded.
Chatoorgoon said he had spoken to the Medical Chief of Staff at St Ann’s and was told that everything was in place to receive the patient. Up until yesterday, the hospital could not locate Ramcharitar’s family and he was being housed in the psychiatric unit on Ward One. Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan yesterday said he had the authority to refer a patient for psychiatric evaluation in the face of criticism.
In a telephone interview, Khan said he had the authority to ask the Medical Chief of Staff to look into doing a referral from one medical institution to another under the Regional Health Authority (RHA) Act. Section five of the RHA Act says a board shall exercise its powers and functions in accordance with such specific or general directions as may be given to it by the minister.
“That is what I did. I spoke to the Medical Chief of Staff and asked him to look into it,” Khan said. He was responding to questions on what basis he could have referred Ramcharitar for an evaluation. Khan had previously said Ramcharitar should be admitted to St Ann’s as his behaviour in the video which went viral, showed he used obscene language to a police officer, was cause for concern.
But former Medical Chief of Staff at the St Ann’s Mental Hospital Dr Ian Hypolite said the Health Minister may have had more information about Ramcharitar than him. He listed the ways in which the Mental Health Act provided for admissions to mental hospitals. “Before being admitted patients must fall into one of several categories,” Hypolite said. Ramcharitar admitted he was a long-term patient living at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Asked yesterday if this was proper procedure, Hypolite said only that he felt that Khan perhaps had more information.
Remember Miller
In 2012, then Gender Minister Verna St Rose-Greaves ordered a ministry employee to be taken to the mental hospital in St Ann’s after she had an outburst at work. St Rose-Greaves was criticised for not following the correct procedure. The employee, Cheryl Miller, an assistant accountant was committed to St Ann’s against her will. She spent more than two weeks at the medical facility, before being released on Good Friday.
Mental Health Act:
Part one of the Mental Health Act which deals with the admission and detention in psychiatric hospitals or wards lists the ways for people who are reasonably believed to be in need of psychiatric treatment to be admitted to institutions.
These admissions are as follows;
(a) as an urgent admission patient;
(b) as a voluntary patient;
(c) as a medically recommended patient;
(d) by an order of the Court made pursuant to section 13;
(e) by an order of the Minister of National Security made pursuant to section 14; or
(f) on the application of a Mental Health Officer under section 15.