Former Government-paid nurse Coral Wilkinson says she has had enough of her attorney-at-law Sir Richard Cheltenham,QC, claiming he has been tardy in completing her injury settlement case with the State, almost 40 years after her fall on the job.
Wilkinson, who fell and injured her back while on duty at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in April 1981, said today she is fed up with how long it has ben taking to bring closure to the matter. “I can’t take this any longer,” said Wilkinson.
She recalled an occasion in which she said she was being blamed for not getting in touch with Sir Richard.
“I said, ‘but you see why I planned that I wasn’t calling back you because every time I call, all I am hearing is that, it doesn’t mean because I am not hearing from you all that nothing isn’t happening. So I said nobody hasn’t called me so I figure nothing is happening,’” Wilkinson stated.
Coral Wilkinson (FP)
Thirty six years old at the time of her spinal injury, the ex-Government health care provider told Barbados TODAY she desperately needs the final payment so she can finish her medical procedures overseas and bring some ease to her deteriorating physical condition where she can no longer bathe herself or touch water with her bare hands.
Wilkinson said that last year, her attorney told her he was ready to submit her final claim. “Every time he keeps telling me the same thing over and over,” she declared.
While admitting that Sir Richard was able to obtain an initial pay out in 2017 of some $300,000 to allow her to travel to the United Kingdom for one phase of corrective surgery, Wilkinson contended that that money was not even sufficient to cover all her medical bills and stay in the UK. She said she had to pull her pocket to avoid embarrassment when she needed transportation to attend therapy or get around generally.
She also revealed that in October last year, another offer of just over half million dollars was made to her as a final settlement, which she rejected.
“You know how much he offered me that day as a final settlement? Make a guess…$550,000…after 1981 until now and I can’t even help myself. I said ‘no, no, no.’ No way am I going to accept it. That can’t even cover the hospital fees in England,” Wilkinson said with a chuckle.
She said that after numerous telephone calls to Sir Richard’s office and hearing “excuse after excuse” she has decided to stop calling.
She told Barbados TODAY that Sir Richard has no valid reason for not submitting her final claim to the Government because she had furnished him with all of the documents he requested since 2017.
“I went up to [the UK] and when I was ready to come back down, I told the doctors I was going home on August 3. When I went to see the doctors for physiotherapy and so on, all of the doctors’ reports were there waiting for me to be collected. I came back down here on August 3 [2017], and in a week’s time, I had everything photocopied and sent to him [Sir Richard],” Wilkinson stated.
She explained that in the same year, her attorney requested an additional medical report, this time from her local specialist which Wilkinson said was provided outlining the condition of her back and her mental state as well.
“That wasn’t enough. In March last year I talked to him. He still had not done anything yet. Nothing he had not done yet,” the former nurse complained, adding that the spinal injury has resulted in such serious neurological problems, she cannot tolerate water on her bare hands.
“When I go in the bath on mornings and the water comes down and hit my fingers, I would get electric-like current going through my body and I am now bathing in gloves. Can you imagine?” Wilkinson asked with a tremble in her voice.
When Barbados TODAY reached out to Sir Richard, he contended that his client’s case was being advanced and more progress was expected in the coming week when his secretary returned from a week-long break.
“Her case is being advanced. She got an interim [payout] up to a few years ago. Went off to London and all the rest,” he said.
“The last thing that Coral told me, bearing in mind that it is a few years and more since she went to London, that she had seen the surgeon specialist here. So I wrote him and asked him, since we can’t get anything from the surgeon specialist in England, to send me a summary of when he last saw her, because you can’t submit a claim with a report two or more years old,” Sir Richard recalled, adding that he required an updated one.
He said it was only after his client called him just before Christmas last year and he told her he was waiting on the report from the specialist here, that there must have been a misunderstanding on his part.
“Because although I told you [Wilkinson] I had been to him [the doctor], I did not mean for you to get an update from him. But that only happened a few days before Christmas; so the matter is on my desk and I am working. The secretary is off for a week, so that when she comes back we could start doing some business,” Sir Richard told Barbados TODAY.
Responding to his client’s complaint that she had been trying to get an audience with him but gets the run-around when she called, the prominent Queen’s Counsel said Wilkinson was always in his office, and had not asked for any audience with him since before Christmas last year.
“So as soon as my secretary comes back, which is next week, I will reach out to Coral and give her a new appointment, so that I could review with her what I have written; so that once she says okay that it is accurate, we can go,” Sir Richard promised.
“I could understand that she is also troubled and her situation is deteriorating and she has carried her burden for many, many years…except that some three years ago I did get an appreciable interim for her and she went off to London. This is now time to bring closure to it. But there was a misunderstanding about the doctor here, the surgeon specialist…and she did go to see him. I thought since the report from England is dated, that I should write him. But she said she didn’t understand or expected me to do that,” he said.
Meanwhile, the former QEH nurse said she presently has six discs out of place in her back and screws implanted in her back from a surgery in 1998 intended to stabilize a shaky spine due to constantly falling at home.
Wilkinson, who said she has been seeing a psychiatrist for the past 19 years, will also require a battery to be surgically placed in her back to stimulate the nerve to produce feeling, physiotherapy until the day of her death and a care giver considering she is now unable to bath and dress herself.
She revealed that once she got her final payout to assist with further surgery in the UK, she would have to return to England for critical follow up treatment every six months.
Wilkinson said her physical disability which has forced her to use a walker continues to cause unbearable pain.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
