Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Ba­by Faith Davis' right hand is not heal­ing. In a last bid of hope to save her hand, the 24-day-old ba­by would un­der­go a skin graft surgery to­day at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mount Hope, her par­ents Earl and Mau­reen Davis said yes­ter­day. The pro­ce­dure is ex­pect­ed to start at 10 am and last ap­prox­i­mate­ly six hours. The ba­by fell ill at her home at In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga, three days af­ter she was born on Ju­ly 8. She be­gan suf­fer­ing with seizures, and doc­tors told her par­ents that she need­ed to re­ceive in­tra­venous flu­id as part of her treat­ment.

Faith was burnt on her right hand while re­ceiv­ing in­tra­venous flu­id at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The hos­pi­tal's med­ical di­rec­tor Stephen Ram­roop, in a sub­se­quent news con­fer­ence, said the burn was not se­ri­ous and she would not lose feel­ings in her hand. He said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing to find out whether Faith could have been burnt if she suf­fered a seizure while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the hos­pi­tal. The burn got in­fect­ed and de­vel­oped in­to a hole ooz­ing pus.

Yes­ter­day, her par­ents Earl, labour­er, and Mau­reen Davis, a house­wife, were pray­ing for their child's speedy re­cov­ery, af­ter she was kept at the pae­di­atric ward of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope.

Earl said doc­tors were con­cerned when they re­moved the ban­dage from Faith's hand yes­ter­day, and saw that the in­jury was not heal­ing.

The fam­i­ly is now de­mand­ing an­swers in­to the sit­u­a­tion. At her bed­side yes­ter­day, Earl said nurs­es at the hos­pi­tal told him his daugh­ter's hand was in a "ter­ri­ble con­di­tion." The dis­traught moth­er said she re­ceived a call from the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, in­form­ing her that her child's med­ical records were avail­able. She said some­one had to be held re­spon­si­ble for her daugh­ter's con­di­tion. Clutch­ing her ba­by at her home yes­ter­day, she said: "I am not feel­ing good at all. This is my bel­ly here....I can­not feel good. Every­day when I look at my child, I am hurt. Her hand is get­ting worse and worse. I went to the hos­pi­tal and a spe­cial­ist told me my daugh­ter's hand was de­te­ri­o­rat­ing. I could nev­er feel good," she said.