Family raises questions about treatment of deceased man

The family of the man who was found dead on a beach in the early hours of Wednesday morning is seeking answers about how he was able to leave the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) where he had been on suicide watch.

The body of 32-year-old Andrew Cumberbatch was discovered at the water’s edge on the beach behind Pirate’s Cove on Lower Bay Street, St Michael, around 5:24 a.m. He had been the subject of a missing person bulletin after he left the QEH on Sunday.

The father of one had reportedly attempted suicide and was taken to the QEH where he had surgery and was subsequently placed on suicide watch.

“We want answers from the hospital on what happened, how he got out the hospital,” demanded one of the deceased’s sisters, Latoya Cumberbatch, when a Barbados TODAY team visited the family home in Ellis Road, Bush Hall, St Michael where she, sister Crystal and mother Orion Cumberbatch sat solemnly.

“If he had not gotten out the hospital he would still be living. We want answers. How somebody on suicide watch could get out the hospital? Before my sister left there the night time they said they gine put he on the psych ward. Nothing ain’t happen to he and I don’t understand, nobody ain’t giving we no answers . . . . Them saying he run through the door. He could hardly move when we went there and visited him. How could he have run?”

Crystal added that the only thing the family knew about the situation was what the media had put out.

“We are still trying to get answers as to how he left the hospital when he was supposed to be under watch. We are still trying to figure that out and we are getting no answers. We are getting the runaround,” she said, claiming that the nurses at the hospital were “not being kind to us”.

“That is what have us from the Sunday, because my mother had just come back home from visiting him, and a couple hours come back here and hear that he walked off and they don’t know where was the security? All the man we spoke to was able to say was he walked out the ward. Nothing else came after that.”

The sisters also charged that whenever they would call to check up on their brother, they got neither information nor empathy from QEH authorities.

“Yesterday [Tuesday] I called a nurse and she told me ‘we have nothing to report so that is why nobody ain’t call’. . . . I mean, he was in their responsibility,” insisted Latoya.

She said her brother had to undergo “serious” surgery and was on drips, making it even more puzzling how he could limp past security and other staff members at the healthcare facility.

“If he had surgery a couple hours ago, how he could bung through a door and bung out a hospital, past security? How he get out a hospital without anybody stopping him – with no shoes, drips on, bag on? That don’t make no sense to me and nobody ain’t giving we answers. They are treating us as if we are a burden and we are bothering them,” Latoya complained.

Efforts to reach hospital officials to shed light on the situation have been unsuccessful.

Cumberbatch, a mason by profession, was the owner of Hulk’s Construction and Repairs, registered in January 2018.

Latoya recalled that he started “acting strange and talking things that don’t make no sense” since last week Wednesday.

“He hadn’t been working for a while, so I feel it was the stress of not working that push him off to do this because he always used to be talking about [providing] for his little girl. So I believe it is him not working, like having a regular, week-to-week paying job. He used to get jobs but it used to be once in a while,” she said.

“He started acting strange and we give him a little time to see if it would settle down, but it get [to that point]. My mother even said she would pray for him.”

Looking back at some happier times with their brother, Crystal and Latoya said while he was very reserved he would often show off his cooking skills.

“He would do different things like he is a chef, and he had a big appetite. He did love his little girl. He was a wonderful father. He would come during the evening and the first thing he would do is holler for his little girl and she would say ‘I love you, Daddy’,” they recalled.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb