Remembering Our Dead

TDoR 2020 / 2020 / May / 29 / Alejandra Ortega (Alejandra Monocuco)

Alejandra Ortega (Alejandra Monocuco)

Age 39

29 May 2020
Santa Fe, Bogotá, Distrito Capital (Colombia)
COVID-19 and clinical neglect

TDoR list ref: tgeu/29-May-2020/Alejandra Monocuco

Alejandra died from COVID-19 after paramedics refused to take her to hospital, claiming that she had no symptoms - despite the fact that she was gasping for breath.

She died 40 minutes after they left.

At midnight this Friday, the death of a transgender woman in the town of Santa Fe, in Bogotá, who was known as Alejandra, was reported. They reported that she was not treated in time by the emergency services, pointing out that the Paramedics in an ambulance refused to transfer her to a healthcare facility.

The Trans Community Network documented, through social networks, writing what happened to this woman, who worked as a sex worker in the city center, and explained that the doctors did not help her because she was a carrier of HIV-positiv.

"At 3 in the morning, Alejandra, a trans sex worker from the Santa Fe neighborhood, died after an ambulance refused to provide her medical service, after she told them that she was living with HIV. At this moment, her body is still in the room. She died drowned and without medical attention," they wrote on Twitter.

One report even claims that the paramedics stood on a street corner smoking and drinking while she was suffering.

After the long wait, Alejandra finally received medical attention. However, this was not encouraging, as she facing not only the respiratory condition but now also discrimination from the paramedics, who, leaving aside their code of ethics, made value judgments about the patient when they knew her HIV positive condition . The attitude they assumed was immediately negative, the witness tells us, and the more time passed, the worse Alejandra's situation got.

There was talk of a possible "Overdose", a diagnosis given without evidence, that "what she presented was going to go down", that she should calm down and not take anything to eat because she could choke, but at that time she was already drowning.

"NO, you see her wrong, I'm very scared, please take her to the hospital, my God!" Diana [Alejandra's friend] begged the first aid personnel, but the only response they received was that she could not be transferred to a Medical Center because she had no symptoms of Covid. The indications they gave her were to be aware that "this is going to go down" (referring to the alleged overdose) A diagnosis that cost her her life.

Despite seeing her without air and having taken oxygen in the ambulance, they did nothing more to help her and preferred to go to a corner to drink red wine and smoke a cigarette, showing a callous and inhuman attitude.

ALEJANDRA ORTEGA, A TRANS WOMAN WITH COVID-19 DIED IN COLOMBIA, AFTER A CALL PARAMEDICS REFUSED TO TREAT HER BECAUSE THEY FOUND OUT SHE HAD HIV

#JusticiaParaAlejandra pic.twitter.com/rkui6f5uje
— College of Idaho GSCA (@CofIGSCA) May 30, 2020