Dear Editor,
Jamaica needs to get its act together!
Many of you may have seen, heard or read the news two weeks ago of a 26-year-old loving father who was fatally stabbed in front of his daughter and numerous other children just outside of a school in broad daylight for absolutely no reason at all.
While it may be “just another murder” to some of you (because it seems this is just the norm in Jamaica these days), to myself and my family we have lost a son, brother, cousin and a father. We have lost someone who meant and will continue to mean a great deal to us.
My brother’s life was taken as if his life had no value; his life was taken away from him as if the person who committed such barbaric, senseless, heartless crime is the one who gave him this life.
Teddane was doing more than a lot of men do these days. He was being a father to his little girl, he went to pick up his daughter from school, with all intentions to return home and someone, another human being, decided his fate.
Teddy, as he was affectionately called by all, was a loving and kind soul, lived a life of excitement, with no apology, just how he wanted to live it for himself, never trying to please anyone or try to gain anyone’s approval or validation. No matter how we fought, because I always just want so much for him, he remained himself.
Now, this is where I need Jamaica to get it together. To add further pain to what we are currently going through, our family cannot move forward with funeral plans. It’s been two weeks already, it is bad enough we are trying to cope with the senselessness of all of this, but now we are faced with uncertainties as to when we will be able to lay my brother to rest, because of Jamaica’s failure to put in place systems that actually work.
Why is Jamaica not acknowledging the fact that it has a flawed system? How can you have one government pathologist in the region — hoping this is a rumor — and think this is not inadequacy? And to make matters worse, you require that the very same pathologist is the only one that is allowed to perform autopsies on murder victims.
Jamaica, just in case you have not realised for yourself, quite a large percentage of deaths in the country is from murder! How then do you not expect that you would not be backed up? You must expect this, you do know this, but it does not affect the people who put these policies in place; it’s nothing to them. Am I right to assume then they just don’t care? Do you really think it is human to have people die and wait three to six months to be buried because the family has to sit and wait for an autopsy to be done?
We would be more than happy to go ahead and pay a private pathologist to get this done, except we are “not allowed”.
Most of our family members are living abroad and, quite frankly, are stuck, twiddling their thumbs, unable to make travel arrangements or make arrangements to take the time off from work because we have not a clue when we will be able to have a funeral. This is insane and this needs to be fixed. How do the authorities not see that there is something wrong with this?
Deneisha Dinnall
dldinnall@gmail.com
Jamaica needs to get its act together!
Many of you may have seen, heard or read the news two weeks ago of a 26-year-old loving father who was fatally stabbed in front of his daughter and numerous other children just outside of a school in broad daylight for absolutely no reason at all.
While it may be “just another murder” to some of you (because it seems this is just the norm in Jamaica these days), to myself and my family we have lost a son, brother, cousin and a father. We have lost someone who meant and will continue to mean a great deal to us.
My brother’s life was taken as if his life had no value; his life was taken away from him as if the person who committed such barbaric, senseless, heartless crime is the one who gave him this life.
Teddane was doing more than a lot of men do these days. He was being a father to his little girl, he went to pick up his daughter from school, with all intentions to return home and someone, another human being, decided his fate.
Teddy, as he was affectionately called by all, was a loving and kind soul, lived a life of excitement, with no apology, just how he wanted to live it for himself, never trying to please anyone or try to gain anyone’s approval or validation. No matter how we fought, because I always just want so much for him, he remained himself.
Now, this is where I need Jamaica to get it together. To add further pain to what we are currently going through, our family cannot move forward with funeral plans. It’s been two weeks already, it is bad enough we are trying to cope with the senselessness of all of this, but now we are faced with uncertainties as to when we will be able to lay my brother to rest, because of Jamaica’s failure to put in place systems that actually work.
Why is Jamaica not acknowledging the fact that it has a flawed system? How can you have one government pathologist in the region — hoping this is a rumor — and think this is not inadequacy? And to make matters worse, you require that the very same pathologist is the only one that is allowed to perform autopsies on murder victims.
Jamaica, just in case you have not realised for yourself, quite a large percentage of deaths in the country is from murder! How then do you not expect that you would not be backed up? You must expect this, you do know this, but it does not affect the people who put these policies in place; it’s nothing to them. Am I right to assume then they just don’t care? Do you really think it is human to have people die and wait three to six months to be buried because the family has to sit and wait for an autopsy to be done?
We would be more than happy to go ahead and pay a private pathologist to get this done, except we are “not allowed”.
Most of our family members are living abroad and, quite frankly, are stuck, twiddling their thumbs, unable to make travel arrangements or make arrangements to take the time off from work because we have not a clue when we will be able to have a funeral. This is insane and this needs to be fixed. How do the authorities not see that there is something wrong with this?
Deneisha Dinnall
dldinnall@gmail.com