Dr. Ivan Garcia of Guatemala, who has worked in the trauma room at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for the past nine years, was found dead in his home at #2113 Guava Street, Belama Phase II, on Monday morning, June 18.
Dr. Garcia lived alone and it was his housekeeper, Leticia Moran, who found him when she arrived at work around 7:30 that morning. She had been surprised to not see his car, a green Geo Prism registration BZ-C-26203, in the garage when she arrived at the house.
“When she gained access to the bedroom she found Dr. Garcia bleeding from the head on the floor, between the bed and the wall of the bedroom,” police press officer, Inspector Fitzroy Yearwood, told the media.
Moran wasn’t certain whether any other personal items had been stolen.
The body showed no signs of decomposition, indicating time of death at sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning.
The hospital called a press briefing for the media who swarmed the hospital complex late on Monday.
Mrs. Ruby Briceño, a senior physiotherapist at K.H.M.H., delivered a prepared statement after the briefing:
“ First of all, I would like to say that I will only be a voice to the conglomerate of sentiments of the doctors and medical professionals here at the K.H.M.H. and professionals beyond the K.H.M.H. as these are the sentiments of other doctors who do not work here, but who had a real appreciation of him, just as the doctors who work here.
“We want to re-vindicate his life and his valuable actions, his dignity, by irrevocably repudiating this low act. We, his fellow colleagues, friends and family do not ask for justice. We demand it!.
“Today the issue in Belize City is not only the level of violence but the impunity surrounding it; the total disregard for life, for families, for our youths, for our children, who are supposed to be the future of ….. our city.
“As a society, we have begged, pledged for solutions for this ever-growing plague. But instead of seeing clear results, what we see is saddening impunity for these everyday acts.”
The hospital also announced on Monday, that it will only be performing emergency surgery during this period of mourning for Garcia.
His medical colleagues throughout the country have been shocked and traumatized at the brutal death of a man who had dedicated his life to relieving pain and suffering for some of Belize’s poorest and most needy.
They gathered at the nearby Lion’s Club conference room for a memorial service on Tuesday, where they eulogized Garcia’s generosity and cheerfulness and his ever willingness to help and to go the extra mile.
