Yohance the toddler

His aunt, Macei Broomes, remembers Yohance as a little boy when she used to take him to pre-school. But even before that she remembers how small he was at his birth.

“The first thing that you would remember is his size, he was premature........ When he came home from the hospital I went into the room with his mother and asked her where was the baby and she said look it there. And you know there a little thing wrapped up......... he was just about eight inches. But what I always remember is that despite his size the amount of noise he would make when he cried.” His sister recalls that she and her siblings picked the name for their brother.

Macei and Abena say that at ten months he fell through a window from their home at Leonora. “We heard this thump and Junior (Olutunde) picked him up and we ran with this little baby who appeared to be dead to a doctor not far away...”

Abena says at the end of it all Yohance only sustained a slight bump to his head. She says everyone thought it would have been more serious since he had hit his head on a plank.

The women also recalled that when he was one a bull charged at him and threw him up in the air.

Undaunted by the world’s dangers, they say at three years Yohance was able to find his school without any help.

The two women remember when he started nursery school and wore his first pair of pants with pockets. After that he refused to wear pants without pockets. His aunt says because his father migrated when he was very young, Yohance never left his home without kissing everyone and telling them goodbye.

Yohance the teenager

As a teenager he had several freak accidents which saw his hands among other parts of his body being broken. The most recent accident was when his nose was broken during a game of basketball.

And in contrast to his childhood days, Yohance never liked to say goodbye. If a family member was leaving the country he made sure he left the house before that person left in order to avoid saying goodbye.

“We always had a little special thing for Yohance, I mean we loved each other but it was universal that we had a little more protection or a little more love for Yohance. Between the three eldest, I mean we loved Benito, we loved each other......... but when it came to Yohance we all agreed that there is something more, there is a special thing..” his sister said.

Her mother would tease her by asking if she had made Yohance because she was always worrying over him.

“We always know that Yohance was special in some way but we couldn’t figure it out.....”

She says they had high expectations for Yohance and he was a boy who never said no to them. His sister had already chosen the college he would have attended in the USA and he had agreed.

But Abena says some of the things they heard from his girlfriend and other friends came as a surprise.

“”Like Yohance selling cell phone in UG, that is something we didn’t expect because Yohance always laughing and his teeth out of his mouth so we always thought that Yohance could never be serious. It was like Yohance know to count money and be a businessman? Yohance used to sell his first year notes, if his girlfriends and his friends didn’t tell us we wouldn’t believe.”

Yohance’s brother, Orin says he took the responsibility for guiding his brother through his teenage years since their father was not around. He recalls that he was working in St Lucia but returned in 1997: “I came back to do medicine but trust me it was dual purpose because I knew I would have been there to see him through his CXC and that difficult transition.” He says because his brother was so easy-going and unassuming he could have easily been influenced and he wanted to be there for him.

Orin says he used to have his brother at the hospital doing lessons and as a result his colleagues knew him well. It was one of them who recognised Yohance last Saturday at the hospital and called his mother.

The family has received reports that Yohance called out his brother’s name twice at the hospital and, Orin feels that was because Yohance knew that persons there knew his brother.

“It is painful for me to see Yohance go down like this. But it hurts me even more because the people, or my colleagues that I am going to be rubbing shoulders with, people I am going to be working with who took the same oath like me, I took that oath last November. They were there to do a duty, I mean this is not [substantiated] information but from little bits that we have been gathering, and I know when police bring in people at the hospital I know how they are treated. It is my understanding that when Yohance was brought to the hospital, I am not saying he was going to live, but there is all indications that there was some professional misconduct.”

Orin says his brother was conscious at the hospital and was talking to Ronson Grey who was injured in the shooting.

The young doctor says professionals who were there to render medical attention were “monkeying around and saying all sorts of things because the police brought him as a criminal so they did the usual thing he is a criminal so ley we drag we foot.” He says the nurses were very supportive from the word “go.”

Orin notes that it is at that same institution he will have to work and it would be very painful for him.

“I am not saying that the institution failed Yohance, or that the medical system failed him. It has to do with the individuals that took that oath.....” He says the hospital “try their best but there are some individuals that make the institution look bad.” Orin vows that every patient he works on when he starts practice would be in the name of his brother. He says the treatment of his brother has been a wake up call for him.