ALMOST a week after 76-year-old Unalee Edwards watched her son writhe on the floor of the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine for several hours before being pronounced dead, she still has several lingering questions.

Among them: Why did her son have to die? Edwards had taken her son, 34-year-old Jason Forbes, to the hospital some time after 7:00 pm last Tuesday because he was complaining of a pain in his stomach.

His sister, Carmen Gunn, recounted to the Jamaica Observer last Wednesday that it was not until some 14 hours later, on Wednesday morning, that her brother’s name was eventually called to received medical attention, but it was too late.

Gunn said her brother died while lying on the hospital’s floor. Edwards told the Observer that she does not want an apology, but instead wants answers.

“I was there the whole night, Jason bawling, ‘Lord Jesus help me; doctor, nurse, help me, mi a guh dead, mi a guh dead, unnu help me’,” the grieving mother recalled.

“When Jason bawl out at the outdoor patient (section)… him say, “Mama help me” and mi say, “Mi cyaan help yuh, memba seh mi and yuh did in deh and dem seh wi fi come out’.” Edwards said she told her son to return to the emergency area so that medical staff could see how much pain he was in.

“And he was there rolling, bawling, you could stay out by Spanish Town Hospital gate and hear him round the back,” the distraught mother shared, adding that nobody looked at him.

She said she watched her son toss and turn, restless on the floor, to the point where he urinated on himself because he was unable to make it to the restroom.

In a bout of tears, Forbes’ mother recalled: “One of the time, you know how mi see the people dem a look pon him, true him deh pon di floor and him all ah wee wee up himself, how mi see how dem a look pon him, mi say, ‘Jason yuh see how di people dem a look pon yuh, and if dem ever see the bed weh yuh a sleep inna’.”

“For him just have the towel a spread; him spread it yah suh, him draw guh deh suh, him fold it up, him put it under him head, him tek it up again,” Edwards recounted for the Observer as her daughter tried to console her.

She said that, not wanting to have her son see the doctor in the state he was, she asked her grandson to bring him a change of clothes. “Mi say, ‘Jase, di clothes come enuh, but yuh cyaan put it on’,” said Edwards.

“And him draw on him bottom like a baby and him come up and him come right a mi foot and him tek di bag and lay down pon di bag.” The weeping mother said that when his name was eventually called she attempted to get him to change into the clothes her grandson brought, but he told her he could not walk to the restroom.

This was when a wheelchair was brought to assist Forbes and, according to his mother’s account, after he was raised unto it and the wheelchair pushed a short distance, he slid down. “When mi look pon him belly, he wasn’t blowing, and him eye dem look glossy. And mi bawl out,” said Edwards.

She told the Observer that she had experienced a somewhat similar experience several years before, but didn’t know one of her children would eventually die at the Spanish Town Hospital.

Edwards recounted that in 1978 she took her son who is three years older than Forbes and was born in 1976, to the Spanish Town Hospital because he had diarrhoea and was vomiting.

She said, however, that she was sent back home and bought glucose for her infant. She noticed though that he had stopped urinating and she took him back to the hospital the following day.

Edwards said that she was at the health facility for hours before she saw someone she knew who worked at the institution. According to Edwards, when she saw the baby she immediately rushed him inside to see a doctor.

“I heard a nurse come out after and asked ‘where is the mother for the baby?’ and I said ‘see mi here, nurse’ and she say ‘Mother, yuh never see seh di baby a guh dead?… So I tell them down there that dem nearly mek that one dead, and [36] years later, Jason come dead pon di floor down there,” Edwards insisted. She told the Observer that, last Thursday, representatives from the hospital contacted her and invited her to a meeting, during which they apologised for what happened to her son.

However, Edwards said she was adamant that she did not want apologies. “Jason is good you know. Is my baby, is my last child,”a tearful Edwards said.

“Is him wash mi rug dem what mi wipe mi foot on out there, and is him sweep mi yard, I raise goats and is him look the feed for them.

“There is nothing that I tell Jason do (and he doesn’t),” said Edwards. “And all that void (is) left, I don’t have anybody.” Edwards had buried another of her eight children about four years ago, and now she is clueless as to her next move.

“I feel very bad, because mi nuh have nuh money… We never prepare fi dat, mi don’t know how him going to bury,” Edwards stated. “And I guh down there and dem a tell mi dem sorry. Mi don’t know how mi pickney a guh bury.”

She said her family is left with pain, but that she is trying to cope. “Maybe if him was a gunman and him get a shot and guh down there… then dem woulda look at him,” reasoned Edwards.

Gunn told the Observer that what has added to their agony is that there is no answer; no one has given her mother an explanation as to why her child had to die in front of her.

“Many times I see these things on front page [of the newspaper] and I say is because dem want paper sell, I didn’t know that it would drop in my lap, and I could face this today with my mother who grow eight of us without a father,” said Gunn.

“And today she have to be mourning for her last child.”

“See my mother here, what’s next for her?” asked Gunn. “Jason would come this morning, Saturday morning, wash her carpet, sweep up her yard, guh pick feed for the goat, she haffi guh plan fi sell the goats.”

The family has since met with an attorney and will know today how they will proceed.

They are also hoping to have an independent pathologist observe the autopsy