A new former hospital worker has been arrested for a third time for stealing from patients, including the rent money of own elderly victim. Tacoma Jawara worked at the Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
Police alleged that Jawara stole rent money from an elderly woman after she was checked into the hospital and spent much of it at a spa. She could not pay her rent and died within days of the theft.
Jaware issued the following apology: “To everybody that I’ve ever did anything wrong to, I’m sorry.” Now that is one universal apology, including everyone ever wronged in any respect by Jawara. Not surprisingly, the victims have rejected the apology as insincere.
Jawara seemed to blame his conduct on working at a hospital: “And, you know, once you work with a lot of distraught people, deaths and stuff like that you get kind of cold. And you don’t really be feeling what everybody feels. And going through financial stress…I just made the wrong choices.”
It is not clear if the hospital will be subject to any liability for the hiring and supervision of Jawara. While this is not generally covered under theories of respondeat superior, there can be liability for negligence for the employer in such a case. The death of the one victim would present a difficult question of causation, but it could make for an interesting tort claim.
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To support Tacuma Jawara getting the maximum sentence, please forward your first/last name and city/state to jailforjawara@gmail.com.
If you prefer, you can sign a petition here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/jail-for-jawara.
The email address has garnered 546 signatures to date and the petition website (just recently set up) has garnered 140 signatures. We are assuming that Mr. Jawara will be convicted and are trying to ensure that the judge understands that people want him put away for a long time.
Also, if you have a MySpace account, the webpage I set up is http://www.myspace.com/jailforjawara. Become a friend if you are a member.
I am a friend of one of the victims and we are doing our best to get as many signatures to support the maximum penalty should Mr. Jawara be convicted of these heinous crimes.
There are uses for Leeches and Maggots in modern medicine to this day, but this guy is not it…
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The New Yorker
John Colapinto, Annals of Medicine, “Bloodsuckers,” The New Yorker, July 25, 2005, p. 72
July 25, 2005 Issue
Keywords
Leeches;
Biopharm;
Sawyer, Roy T.;
Doctors;
Medicine;
Surgeons, Surgery;
Peters, Carl
ANNALS OF MEDICINE about medicinal uses of the leech… Writer tells about a man in Wales whose cauliflower ear was treated by leeching it. The leech used in the procedure came from a company named Biopharm in south Wales, the world’s largest leech farm… Last summer the F.D.A. approved the leech for use as a medical device (maggots are also approved). There are more than six hundred and fifty species of leech and much that is known about them is the result of research by Roy T. Sawyer, an American-born zoologist who is Biopharm’s founder. Tells about Sawyer’s lifelong interest in leeches and his ambition to write the authoritative book on them. Leeches are found in virtually every kind of habitat. Only one species, however, is considered suitable for medicinal purposes: Hirudo Medicinalis, a freshwater leech once abundant in the lakes of Europe. Tells about the evolving use of leeches in medicine from ancient times to the nineteenth century when leeching peaked and the European freshwater leech became endangered… In addition to their use as blood-suckers, leech saliva serves as a powerful anti-coagulant. In1983. Sawyer created a startup company with the goal of identifying all of the curative chemicals in the leech… Describes the use of leeches by Boston surgeon Joseph Upton in a 1985 operation to sew an ear back on a boy. During the past decade, leeching has become part of the routine training for reconstructive plastic surgeons. Describes the reproduction, feeding and harvesting of leeches in tanks at Biopharm. Tells about a 1990 expedition by Sawyer and others to search for the giant Amazon leech in French Guiana. The team bagged thirty-five leeches and started a farm from which they isolated an enzyme called hementin, which breaks down blood clots. Describes text being conducted by doctors at the Essen Clinic in Germany on the use of leeches to relieve arthritis pain. Also tells about experiments at the Neuroscience Institute of at the State University of New York at Old Westbury on obtaining morphine from the leech’s salivary glands.