ComPol Williams Meets with S.I. Hospital Staff

It happened on June first, but only came to light this week, that doctors and nurses who were on duty at San Ignacio Community Hospital that night came under threat by relatives of a severely injured man. David Galindo was shot while visiting his girlfriend on Salazar Street in Santa Elena Town and was rushed to the hospital for treatment. He died a week later, but the series of events that occurred at the hospital on the night he was taken there have reportedly left the staff at the facility in fear of their lives. Members of the Galindo family are accused of hurling threats at the medical team that if David Galindo died, the medical professionals would die too. But the family has come out slamming the Belize Police Department and the media for referring to them as gang members. And when asked about it, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams basically brushed off the family’s reaction. He told reporters that, moving forward, he wants the Belize Police Department to collaborate with the hospital in formulating protocols so that order is kept. News Five’s Marion Ali filed this report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

The Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, arrived at the San Ignacio Community Hospital just before two p.m., where he met with the management and staff, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. He told us after the session that he wanted to hear firsthand from the officials what transpired on the night of June first, when David Galindo was taken to the hospital.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Having heard from them what took place on the night in question, we discussed to see what we can do to make sure that there is no occurrence in the future. And one of the things that we are doing is that my legal officer, Mr. Jones, will be working along with Dr. Sabido to develop a protocol in terms of how the police is going to respond to incidents at the hospital. And even what the police is going to do when there is a high profile patient being treated at the hospital. Particularly if that patient is brought by the police. So the, way it was done before where the police just come and drop the person and leave. There have to be something done to create police presence. In the event that persons may want to come and create problems.”

 

The family of David Galindo has lashed back at the police, denying that they are gang members. Galindo’s brother, Mynor Galindo told News Five on Tuesday evening that he was not at the hospital the night when his brother got shot and only found out that he had been shot when his family called to inform him. He said he found out that the ambulance driver did not want the family to accompany David to the hospital and that if they tried to, he would park the ambulance. Galindo said this was when there was some back and forth with the staff.

 

 

 

In a Facebook post, Dianie Waight, said that she was the only one who accompanied her brother in the ambulance. She denied that any of her relatives are gang members. Waight said, “It wasn’t even the police that took him to the hospital. We did cause if it was left to them, as they hear a Galindo is down, they would move much slower. They took more than thirty minutes to arrive at the scene. We were desperate, we wanted the doctors to move faster. I do apologize for any misbehaviour. The next thing, they said a gang member. Soh I da gang member now then? I had a right to go along. Somebody had to go with him.”

 

 

 

Commissioner Williams did not care to respond to the Facebook post. He focused his comments on the meeting with hospital administrators and told reporters that investigators are reviewing surveillance footage from the facility to identify the persons who threatened the hospital staff. During the meeting, the ComPol shared a few suggestions.

 

Chester Williams,

“I also suggested to the hospital what they can do is that, with their security that they currently have, we can look at training them and making them special constables. Since the police is not able to work at the hospital on a 24 hours basis, the security that they have, if they’re special constables, they’ll have the poor as a police. They’ll be able to do law enforcement job and arrest people who may come on the grounds to create problem. We also discussed to see how we can do we’re going to be doing crisis management training for both the hospital staff as well as the police again. The hospital staff would require the training so that they know how they’re going to handle a crisis at the hospital and the police will be trained to be able to respond to that crisis, so it’s going to be a joint venture between the police and the hospital authority to make sure that should there be a crisis, our response is going to be in sync with each other.”

 

This is an idea that Williams would recommend for hospitals across the country, especially the ones that are in locations where gang activity is high.

 

Chester Williams

“We have to make sure that when we do have patients who are high profile, when I say high profile like in the sense of their presence at an institution may create some threat, then we will have to make sure we have a system in place to be able to deal with that so it can be replicated across the country. Again, really said they does have something not in writing, but it is implied. Police officers do know that when they respond to an incident at K.H.M.H., we normally leave police officers there. We’ll see how we can adapt that. In the time being, police can stay at the hospital while the patient is here, at least for a certain amount of hours until the patient is stabilized or transferred or whatever.”

 

When asked why the meeting had just been called when the incident occurred from June first, Commissioner Williams said that he had just recently become aware of its veracity and egregious nature. Marion Ali for News Five.