A man is trying to reach a settlement with the KHMH after he says that his wife died due to negligence and an incorrect diagnosis. Floyd Reneau spoke to us outside the KHMH today to discuss the long and painful road throughout his wife’s illness. His wife, 54 year old Irma Samuels Reneau fell ill in 2017. A biopsy along with several other tests were done at the KHMH but after about a year and half of going back and forth at the KHMH, Reneau says that no one could tell him what his wife had. So late last year he took his wife to the US and he finally found out she had colon cancer. Unfortunately, his wife died last month. Here is Reneau’s account.

Floyd Reneau - Husband
"Basically my wife was hospitalized here back in the 29th of November 2017 for a common obstruction in the stomach and the evaluation of the doctor was to turn her over to a specialist who was doctor Gutierrez seeing that she needed surgery. She went into the surgical procedure from around 12:00 until about 5:30 the following morning and the doctor exit the emergency room stating that she is okay, she is fixed up. They gave us the follow up appointment of two weeks, she been in the hospital for two weeks so two weeks prior to that we came back in here for a check-up from the physician doctor Gutierrez, he was not in. They stated they would give us a new appointment, they are going to call us back to give us a new appointment and that was not done. I took my wife back home, I start treating her, feeding her healthy food, she gain her energy back, she gain her weight back, still waiting for a copy of the biopsy because they took a mass from her stomach what was the content of the mass we don’t know so we still try to figure it out so we kept coming back, to no avail. We don’t know nothing, 6 months later she got sick 23rd of June 2018, shoe got sick again. She was rushed back here. When she got here, the doctors did not have a file on her, they didn’t have any information on her, two of the doctors kept tracking down the physician and he stated he didn’t remember giving her the surgery and I said yes you did. They start treating her, they decide to do a new procedure of doing a new biopsy, so a biopsy was taken, I privately took it to Belmopan to be tested and in two weeks the results came back negative, I said it was not concrete, something is not right she is getting sick again, she is not looking like the person she was so we keep coming back here no response."

"She got sick again, November 18th , I brought her back here, same procedure, cat-scan, this that, we not getting no answers. Now they decide they want to give her a quick fix which is a colostomy bag. I said why does she need a colostomy bag if she is still using the restroom, meanwhile she is losing blood. Every two weeks she has to get a blood transfusion, so we sat down and talk about and I decided to take her to the US. She was taken to the US on December 1st 2018. She went into the hospital December 2nd. In 72 hours she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. This facility knew she had pre cancer. This is a copy of the biopsy report or what they claim is the biopsy report. This biopsy was done, November 29th, the result came back August 16th 2018, We did not receive this until February of this year, 15 months later, do the math, she can’t be alive 15 months later, so something is wrong."

"They see pre-cancer, the doctor saw this, if the doctor saw this and you are a chief surgeon why didn’t you refer to the patient right way what you saw, this should have been an urgent care. My wife passed away June 23rd this year exactly one month and one day, there is no way that a living individual should have died like that, I watch her suffer, I watch her in the pain, I watch her lose all the weight, if these people did their job she could have been here because if you saw pre-cancer what is your next move, over to an oncologist, if the cancer does not shrink, it will spread we did not know all this, so that is what happen, it came back as a monster."

The KHMH has sent a release saying “ The KHMHA acknowledges that a legal claim has been filed by Mr. Floyd Reneau on behalf of Ms. Irma Samuels (Deceased)and is being reviewed by the Authority’s Legal counsel. The Authority would like to state that any legal claim submitted

requires reasonable time to allow for complete and objective review. Due to patient confidentiality and the commencement of a legal process,  the Authority is unable to comment further.â€￾

Reneau says that he has also met with Director of Health Services Dr. Marvin Manzanero regrading this case. When we contacted Dr. Manzanero he told us via text that the Ministry of Health will do an internal review with the KHMH but he is unable to say anything given the pending legal matter. We will keep following this case.