Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the death of tod­dler Adri­an Brown, who died at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, mere hours af­ter be­ing stung by a scor­pi­on at his Clax­ton Bay home. The three-year-old, of Macaulay Road, Clax­ton Bay, will be laid to rest to­day, af­ter a fu­ner­al ser­vice at 2 pm at the Je­sus Loves You Min­istries Church, School Trace. Adri­an, who at­tend­ed Hope Pre-School, Ban­doo Trace, Clax­ton Bay, would have turned four next Wednes­day. His fa­ther, Ja­son Shel­don Brown, 29, said he had planned a treat for lit­tle Adri­an's class to cel­e­brate the boy's birth­day. He said the fam­i­ly would still take par­ty bags and ice cream for the class.

Yes­ter­day, SWRHA chair­man Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, speak­ing with re­porters at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment at the San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tal, ex­pressed con­do­lences on the child's death. He said when the child ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal, doc­tors tried their best to save him. He said, how­ev­er, that based on ini­tial re­ports he re­ceived, "the child de­vel­oped se­vere com­pli­ca­tions that can oc­cur from a scor­pi­on sting such as a car­diac prob­lem. "My in­for­ma­tion is the doc­tors tried to save the child's life," he added. Bo­doe said he not­ed me­dia re­ports which sug­gest­ed that the an­ti­dote was un­avail­able. He said, how­ev­er, he was told "that a mi­nor med­ica­tion that would not have made a dif­fer­ence, but I would look in­to it."