Monrovia — The family of a 28-year-old employee of the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) who suffered a deadly electric shock while on duty has alleged neglect by the management of LEC.
Gabriel Borbordee got injured on May 25 by a 2500kw high tension power line while on a pole trying to connect houses in Monrovia’s Capitol Bye-pass community.
He had since then been bedridden to date and receiving treatment at the government-run John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital. The family immediately launched an appeal to the management of LEC for advanced medical treatment abroad, which they said would be “most guarantee to save their relative’s life”.
One week after, the victim’s family alleged that the management of LEC has abandoned their relative despite assurances of paying the medical expenses and funding his trip abroad for advanced treatment.
In an emotion-laden voice, the father of the victim, Mark Borbordee, said his son’s condition is worsening and the LEC management “has not given a dime or applying efforts to send his son abroad for treatment”.
“If this has been one of their senior managers in this condition, they would have flown him out of the country by now, but because it’s someone’s child, they are playing a blind eye to his health,” the father said.
“The management of LEC continues to play delay tactics for our son to be flown to Ghana. They told us to be patient until his body is cleaned up before being flown out of the country, but yet we haven’t gotten a word from the LEC management.”
“Our family has written a formal communication to the LEC management about how our son’s condition is worsening but they seem to be ignoring our concerns.”
“We have paid over $500 for the one week our son has been admitted here at JFK and we have gone out of cash to buy materials prescribed by doctors to treat him,” the father said.
“They convinced us that they wanted to clean the dead skin and afterward they will refer us, but nothing has been done since the dead skin was cleaned.”
Borbordee, however, pleads with the LEC management to work with the JFK Hospital to do the referral note so that his son be transferred abroad for treatment.
“We are asking the management of JFK to work with the management of JFK to do a referral note that will enable the family takes our son to Ghana, where we are already making arrangements for him to be treated at the 37 Military Hospital in Ghana,” the father said.
The acting chief executive officer of LEC, Philip Jacques, when contacted, said there is an ongoing internal investigation on the matter, and thereafter the management would release an official statement. Hence, he did not comment on the allegation of abandonment made by the family or the intention of the management to fly the injured employee to Ghana for advanced treatment.