A 42-year-old reg­is­tered nurse who lost her ba­by at the Port-of-Spain Ma­ter­ni­ty De­part­ment’s Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU) says the death of her child has dashed all hopes of her be­com­ing a moth­er.

The nurse, who al­so works at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, de­tailed what she called the “hog­gish and un­pro­fes­sion­al be­hav­iour of some mem­bers of staff” even to­wards one of their own col­leagues.

The feel­ing of hope­less­ness was laid bare in a 17-page pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) by at­tor­neys of Free­dom Law Cham­bers led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC. The pre-ac­tion let­ter, on be­half of Natasha Samuel, is part of a class ac­tion law­suit for 11 ba­bies who died be­tween Feb­ru­ary and April 9.

The le­gal let­ter de­tailed that on March 13, Samuel gave birth via Cae­sare­an sec­tion to a ba­by girl named Skiye Wil­son af­ter 32 weeks ges­ta­tion. The neonate weighed 835 grammes and was placed in NICU for ob­ser­va­tion.

Samuel said she felt be­trayed by her own col­leagues af­ter they told her that her child was “well and pro­gress­ing nice­ly.” She added that af­ter some time she saw few­er ba­bies at the NICU and was told that the in­fants had been dis­charged as they got bet­ter. It was on­ly some­time af­ter that she learnt that six oth­er ba­bies had died all from bac­te­r­i­al sep­sis.

Samuel said her sense of be­tray­al wors­ened af­ter she was giv­en two re­ports by the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal with dif­fer­ing caus­es of death signed by two sep­a­rate doc­tors.

On April 9 one doc­tor wrote that the in­fant had pul­monary haem­or­rhage, sep­sis and pre­ma­tu­ri­ty were the cause of death for ba­by Skiye. In the sec­ond death cer­tifi­cate dat­ed yes­ter­day—April 19—signed by an­oth­er doc­tor, Skiye is re­port­ed to have died of pul­monary haem­or­rhage, pre­ma­tu­ri­ty and ex­treme­ly low birth weight. Un­like the first cer­tifi­cate sep­sis was changed to pre­sumed sep­sis in the sec­ond death cer­tifi­cate.

Af­ter her child died, Samuel said she felt bro­ken, de­ceived and be­trayed.

“She had over­heard the nurs­es say­ing that there were bac­te­ria and that the in­no­cent ba­bies had been in­fect­ed. Our client said she was dev­as­tat­ed be­cause her ba­by was thriv­ing well and as a nurse, she knew how im­por­tant it was to have a well-sani­tised NICU, yet peo­ple were in and out of the ward with­out gowns and gloves.”

The let­ter from the law firm added that the death of ba­by Skiye brings the nurse’s dream of moth­er­hood to an end. “Our client in­structs that she was bro­ken be­cause at age forty-two, this was her last chance at hav­ing a ba­by, one which she had ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed and longed for.”

Af­ter giv­ing birth, Samuel un­der­went tubal lig­a­tion (hav­ing her tubes tied), pre­vent­ing her from ever hav­ing chil­dren again.

“This loss has there­fore had a dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on her,” said the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter.

Added to her woes, was the treat­ment she re­ceived from her own col­leagues in the health­care pro­fes­sion.

“Our client’s night­mar­ish ex­pe­ri­ence at the PoS­GH, has caused her to re­alise that there is mer­it and truth in the pub­lic’s ac­count of the hog­gish and un­pro­fes­sion­al be­hav­iour of some mem­bers of staff. There was no pro­fes­sion­al cour­tesy giv­en to her as “one of their own” so she shud­ders to think what or­di­nary mem­bers of the pub­lic would have to en­dure. In­stead, she ex­pe­ri­enced the raw and ug­ly re­al­i­ty of the in­com­pe­tence and ir­re­spon­si­ble, ig­no­rant, and un­pro­fes­sion­al at­ti­tude of the med­ical staff.”

Time­line of Skiye’s stay in NICU

The pre-ac­tion let­ter said that 12 days af­ter the in­fant’s birth and blood trans­fu­sion Skiye was tol­er­at­ing feeds at 20ml every three hours and her weight in­creased to 955 grammes.

“On Fri­day 5th April 2024, when our client vis­it­ed the ba­by she was cop­ing nice­ly as men­tioned above. The nurs­es told her the ba­by was do­ing fine, that she was the best-be­haved ba­by on the ward, and that she was feisty and strong. They al­so told her that the ba­by would be mov­ing to the step-down part of the NICU. Our client left the hos­pi­tal feel­ing very hap­py that her ba­by was do­ing well and would be able to go home soon.”

A day lat­er the nurse was told that Skiye’s pulse was rac­ing and she al­so had a low-grade fever. At 3 am three days lat­er, Skiye was dead.

But a day be­fore the child died, Samuel said she re­ceived a call from the hos­pi­tal telling her that her ba­by was not do­ing well.

“When she ar­rived she was shocked and ter­ri­fied at the state of her ba­by. She felt a sink­ing feel­ing in her stom­ach, it was as if some­one had tak­en a sledge­ham­mer and smashed it against her navel with bru­tal force. She no­ticed blood in the ba­by’s mouth, her stom­ach was swollen, and her eyes were rolled up. The doc­tors told our client that the ba­by had an in­fec­tion and was bleed­ing in her lungs and that they had giv­en her a lot of adren­a­line.”

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Samuel and the oth­er fam­i­lies said as of yes­ter­day they re­ceived on­ly two sets of med­ical records de­spite a promise by Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh that they would be avail­able with­in a cou­ple of days.