Geisha Kow­lessar

Two doc­tors in­volved in the death of ba­by Sime­on are re­luc­tant to come for­ward be­fore the in­ves­tiga­tive team with­out their at­tor­neys be­ing present.The team for­mer­ly be­gan the probe on Thurs­day.This was re­vealed by re­tired Ap­peal Court judge Mustapha Ibrahim who is a mem­ber of the team.Ibrahim was speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence held a the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at Ca­bil­do Cham­bers, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Al­so present were con­sul­tant ob­ste­tri­cian/gy­nae­col­o­gist of the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of Lon­don Hos­pi­tals Dr Melanie Clare Davies and Dr Petronel­la Man­ning-Al­leyne, neona­tol­o­gist and for­mer head of the Neona­tal Unit at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal who are al­so mem­bers of the team.Ba­by Sime­on bled to death af­ter his head was slashed from ear to ear as his moth­er Quel­ly Ann Cot­tle was un­der­go­ing a Cae­sar­i­an-sec­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day.

Ibrahim, Davies and Man­ning-Al­leyne were for­mer­ly in­tro­duced to mem­bers of the me­dia by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.Ibrahim was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion on whether doc­tors, in par­tic­u­lar those as­signed to the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies were co­op­er­at­ing in the probe.He said all the oth­er doc­tors have com­plied and came for­ward will­ing­ly to be ques­tioned by the team.

On a time frame of when the probe is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed Ibrahim said this was dif­fi­cult to say as a large num­ber of wit­ness­es were ex­pect­ed to be called."We have to ex­am­ine them oral­ly. We have to con­sid­er what our du­ties of care are and what are the du­ties of care which ex­ist in T&T and whether they are suf­fi­cient or whether they should be im­proved," Ibrahim said.He said Davies would be leav­ing T&T short­ly to at­tend an in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence.

Al­though there was these con­straints the probe would be com­plet­ed with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time.Re­gard­ing neg­li­gence, Ibrahim said this was a civ­il claim which was out­side the re­mit of the team.He said if there was ev­i­dence that crim­i­nal charges ought to be laid then that would be the case."But we have not yet com­plet­ed the in­quiry so we can't give any opin­ion at this point in time as to the facts we have be­fore us if we are sure that crim­i­nal charges or civ­il charges or a breech of du­ty have oc­curred.

"We have to look at all the ev­i­dence, weigh the ev­i­dence very care­ful­ly and them make up our minds with re­spect to rec­om­men­da­tions," Ibrahim said.He said the AG told the team to present a com­pre­hen­sive re­port deal­ing with all the mat­ters and cir­cum­stances in­clud­ing whether du­ties of care were bro­ken on the day ba­by Sime­on died.De­scrib­ing the mat­ter as a nov­el case Ibrahim said the team had to be very care­ful as to how it pro­ceed­ed.

One of the is­sues which would be ex­am­ined ex­ten­sive­ly was how to im­prove the neona­tal sys­tem.Ram­lo­gan said be­cause the med­ical pro­fes­sion was so close knit there was a great re­luc­tance on the part of doc­tors to tes­ti­fy against their col­leagues.He said T&T would be look­ing to im­ple­ment a med­ical com­plaints coun­cil as such was the case in Eng­land.

Moth­er in­ter­viewed

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day Cot­tle said she ap­peared be­fore the team on Thurs­day and was asked to give a ball by ball ac­count of what tran­spired on the day ba­by Sime­on died.Say­ing it was dif­fi­cult Cot­tle said she cried a bit but kept her com­po­sure."They in­ter­viewed me yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) and it went fair­ly ok. But hon­est­ly speak­ing I have lit­tle con­fi­dence would get some jus­tice. I am very scep­ti­cal of what is go­ing on," Cot­tle said.

She said she told the team what was need­ed were se­vere penal­ties for doc­tors who were found cul­pa­ble as too many in­no­cent lives were be­ing lost.