It’s no laughing matter for popular comedian Trevor “Dynamite” Eastmond who is recovering from what he said was a couple of failed suicide attempts.
Speaking to THE NATION at the Psychiatric Hospital where he has been warded for almost two months, the funnyman was adamant that he wanted such information published because he was at his wit’s end.
“Yes, so I won’t have to call nobody and tell them nothing. I don’t want to be nobody’ burden. I admit myself because I wanted to kill myself, I want to lef’ this place [world],” he said repeatedly.
Eastmond, who said he was taken off suicide watch on November 30, was visibly frustrated as he charged that his mental state was as a result of the excruciating pain that he has had to endure since he broke both hips escaping a fire.
In the 2007 fire that destroyed his Christ Church home, he also sustained burns about his body. Back in 2015, the Christ Church resident attempted to fly overseas for hip replacement surgery but he complained this process was delayed because of a prolonged wait to acquire his medical records from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).
Ambling with the assistance of two crutches, Eastmond again moaned that his pain had intensified to the point that he is severely depressed. However, although he claimed he already paid for the records which are needed to get the process underway, all he said he has received thus far from the hospital was “a little doctor’s note”.
While graphically recounting how he tried to overdose on medication and drown himself by jumping off the jetty at Oistins, the 59-year-old pleaded for Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s intervention to deal with his grievance.
“After the last [failed attempt] the Sunday, end of September, I was talking to a friend of mine that used to work here. He tell me the best thing to do is to go and check out the issue and I come here and the man put me here. My blood pressure was 200 over 108. The doctor tell me, you is a dead man walking. I tell yuh, it ain’t easy . . . . [chief executive officer of the QEH] Dexter James ain’t got no power to help me. I want Mia to know that she is the Prime Minister and I still pun crutches, I still waiting for you to contact me. Mia promised me that she gine fix me but since May 24, I have not seen her, only in the papers or on TV,” he said.
Eastmond acknowledged that the PM may be busy with other issues but he asked: “Busy more important than a man’s health?
“There ain’t one Bajan that get up yet and holler ‘cheese on bread wunna unfair Trevor Eastmond though’. Not one . . . . I just want to be able to walk, run and dance and play cricket and football like anybody else. Once I get that do, them could do what they like, but I got to get that do.
Expressing his feelings of “abandonment” by members of the entertainment fraternity, Eastmond was unsure about when he would be released.
“The doctor telling me he ain’t letting me go until I get the appointment at the hospital.
Efforts to reach Dr James were unsuccessful. (SDB Media)
