Family seeks answers in case of man who went missing from Palms and later died
Stabroek News
June 1, 2003
The family of Ronald Johnson-Downer, a man who died shortly after he went missing from the Palms Home for the elderly, are seeking answers from the institution’s administration, to questions which still linger about his disappearance.
Johnson-Downer died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on Friday March 7, the day that he was supposed to have celebrated his 60th birth anniversary.
According to his sister, Waveny Stephens, she last saw her brother alive on Wednesday February 26, when she visited him at the institution to give him food and a change of clothing.
A violent attack in 1996 left him unable to care for himself and being without relatives who could provide proper supervision or tend to his needs, Johnson-Downer had since been resident at the Palms.
Stephens, who continued to care for her brother even after his institutionalisation, said when she last saw her brother he appeared fine, and accompanied her to her workplace which is nearby. She said she escorted him back to the Palms, and visited again two days later, only to be told on this occasion that he was not in the ward. “Upon inquiring, I was informed by the nurse on duty that he was missing for approximately one week,” Stephens wrote in a letter to the Minister of Human Services and Social Security, whom she is hoping will find the answers to the mystery surrounding her brother’s disappearance from the home.
Stephens stated that when told of Johnson-Downer’s disappearance by the nurse, she refuted the latter’s contention that he had been missing for a week, informing her that her brother had been there only two days earlier and that it was the administrator herself who had directed her to his ward.
“[The nurse] then suggested that I search for him!”
Unable to speak with any of the institution’s administrators at that time she searched the city, including funeral homes and places her brother had frequented during his earlier years.
She went on with her search until Friday, March 7, Johnson-Downer’s birthday, when she again visited the Palms in the hope of finding clues to his whereabouts. She spoke with a senior official of the institution, who reiterated that her brother had gone missing a week prior to her last visit. During her visit a nurse attached to the GPHC suggested that she check at the hospital because someone fitting his description had been admitted there. Accompanied by a niece she went to the GPHC, she said, and was told that a person with the name ‘Downer’ had been admitted and was receiving treatment.
Relating her story to the Stabroek News Stephens said she was led to the second-floor of the Accident and Emergency Unit, which houses the High Dependency and Intensive Care wards.
Said Stephens,”...They carried me into a room and they told me to sit down. I told them my story and the man told me I could see [my brother]. And when I get up to go to see him he told me I `step’ too late because he just died. I was in shock, I did not know what to do...”
She said she was informed that her brother was admitted to the institution on Saturday March 1, but there was no record of who brought him in or the circumstances surrounding his injuries.
An autopsy which was later performed on Johnson-Downer found that he had died of cerebral haemorrhaging as a result of blunt trauma to the head. He also sustained a fractured leg. His death was ruled an accident by the medical examiner who performed the autopsy; however, according to his death certificate it had not been determined where he had sustained these injuries.
“I have some doubts in my mind as to how my brother received his injuries,” Stephens wrote, “because from observation, motor vehicle accident victims usually have abrasions to their skin. No such evidence was seen on my brother.”
She has since sought answers from both the Palms and the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security.
Her brother, she alleges, like many other inhabitants of the Palms, was allowed to leave the institution’s compound unsupervised, and on a daily basis.
Stephens in her letter questioned if the institution was indeed responsible for the safety and welfare of its inmates and whether there were control procedures to ensure that the staff were aware of when inmates went missing. She also asked whether investigations were carried out to determine the whereabouts of missing inmates, and if they were, how long before they commenced and relatives were contacted?
Stephens is seeking answers to her questions in the hope that “systems are put in place to avoid any other inmate suffering a similar fate.”
Stabroek News was unable to reach the administrator or the matron of the institution for comment, however Minister of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Dr Dale Bisnauth, when contacted said he had not been made aware of the particular case.
However, while explaining that it was the administration of the institution which was responsible for the welfare of the inmates, he said that in the case of missing persons, enquiries were indeed made and the police were contacted to conduct investigations, as were the relatives of the missing persons.
Bisnauth additionally em-phasised that inmates were not allowed to leave the compound of the institution unsupervised and security was in place to prevent the possibility that they might.
