Steve Brown and his wife Stacy Kerry-Anna Brown engage in a marriage ritual after 'tying the knot' seven years earlier. (Photos: file)

STEVEN Brown, whose wife Stacy died last year at the Spanish Town Hospital, is forging ahead with a lawsuit against the hospital, which he has accused of negligence.
"I think the case is just about ready to go into the courts now.
It had to go through the Administrator General's Department because the case involved a minor (son Kashron). A part of the lawsuit has to do with a compensatory package to Kashron)," he told the Observer.

"As a matter of fact, I think the major part of the lawsuit has to do with him so whatever necessary paperwork that was to be done was actually done between the lawyer and the administrator general. I am now just awaiting the actual case itself to be presented to the court."

It was not clear up to Saturday how much Brown was suing the hospital for. His attorney Alicia Thomas - who took over from his original attorney Dorothy Lightbourne, now Jamaica's Attorney General and Ministry of Justice - could not be reached for comment.

Stacy Kerry-Anna Brown died at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine in August 2006.

Chief executive officer (CEO), of the Spanish Town Hospital, Clive Dobson, has in the interim refused comment on the case, saying it was a matter for the Ministry of Justice.
"Usually when we have such matters, they are referred to the Ministry of Health, who would take it from there. I really have no further information (concerning) where the matter has gone," he told the Observer via telephone.

Stacy Kerry-Anna Brown, died last August while awaiting treatment at the Spanish Town Hospital. Relatives reported at the time that health care professionals at the institution had delayed in taking the 26-year-old woman to the operating theatre, even after being advised by her family doctor that she was bleeding internally and required immediate surgery.

Hospital workers reportedly insisted that Brown would need to have an X-ray and a pregnancy test done first. The tests were done, according to information from her older sister Dulcie Jarrett at the time. But more than three hours later Stacy still had not been attended to, relatives said. When she was finally brought into theatre, it was too late.
Now more than a year later, her husband and young son, now eight years old, are still in recovery.

"It has been trying times, but there has been good family support from my mother especially. They have been really supportive in terms of getting (household) stuff like washing of clothes and the ironing of uniforms and so on done. Stuff like that I don't have to be doing every weekend. And for summer holiday, his ticket came for him to spend some time with my sister," Brown said.
As for his son, he said he is healing.

"He is in a healing mood. The support of the family has really helped," he said; adding that he was working to ensure his son did not suffer long-term psychological damage from the loss of his mother at that early age.

"Because of the sensitive nature of the situation, I personally want to be managing the psychology of it. I don't want him to be among the statistics where he lost his mother young and did not adjust," Brown noted.

"But it's been only a year. For now, (his interaction with others on the loss of his mother) is very confined because I am paying specific attention to his futuristic development. I have to be trying to fast track his development in case of my own untimely demise. There is just one strike of the ball left - me."

For himself he said he, too, was still dealing with the loss of his young wife.

"I am recovering. The family support is always there - family and friends. They never leave me out. Without even bringing up the situation, they call," he said.

He added that there was no real prospect of a second wife in the near future.

"There has been one and two meetings with people. but it is a ticklish thing because you are talking about a widower with a child. It makes your situation a bit special," he said. "I have some good friends out there, but I cannot interact with anybody without thinking of the impact it will have on Kashron."

Meanwhile, Brown is hopeful for a positive outcome from the court proceedings to be undertaken, drawing courage from the fact that his case was originally handled by the attorney who is now the island's AG and minister of justice.

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