Senior Multimedia Journalist
joshua.seemungal@guardian.co.tt
The parents of the seven babies who died of neonatal sepsis at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit between April 4 and 7, say they have lost faith and confidence in the country’s public healthcare system.
Guardian Media spoke with three sets of parents after they returned to the PoSGH yesterday morning for medical records. They said they were unsatisfied with the explanations given by the North West Regional Authority and Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh about their babies’ deaths. They said they are still waiting for the truth, adding they are yet to meet with anyone from the NWRHA or the Health Ministry.
“Nope. Nope (I cannot trust the public healthcare system again). And this is why everybody wants to go to private hospitals. It is only because it is costly. Everybody can’t afford to go private, but that’s where they are leading people, to go to the private sector,” Shayna Raymond-Adams, the mother of Kae’ Jhene Charles, said.
“Words cannot even explain. My mental health is like a serious thing right now … In my eyes, that is negligence.”
Another mother, who lost her baby girl, whom she named Aarya Raya Chatergoon, added, “It’s really, really hard to even step foot here, so I don’t even think we could do something like that again.
“Throughout this entire process, we have just been in doubt. Even though answers are being given to the questions, they still have us in doubt because it is not direct. And it is hard to move forward or move on, without actually knowing what happened, or how it started.”
They all said they were going through the lowest moments of their lives. Some of them even said they have begun blaming themselves in the absence of satisfactory answers, but admitted they learned more from the media than they did from the hospital staff during the ordeal.
“As a father, being there every day, knowing they are telling you that your child is coming along—off the ventilator, breathing well. It’s just rough. It is anger and frustration. I am trying not to end up in a dark place,” Kerron Charles, the father of Kae’ Jhene, said.
Chattergoon’s mother, who asked not to be named, noted, “Every day we would ask and we would enquire when we visit our baby—Is everything ok? They would say there isn’t anything you should be worried about and they told us everything was fine. At this point, we are just confused as to how they could have gotten this (infection).”
Another one of the mothers, Shaquille Harry, insisted that the accounts given by the NWRHA and the Minister of Health were untruthful. She believed the hospital could have done better for the babies, and her baby.
“This is not just an infection that happened Friday into the weekend. This infection was there long. This infection has been here a while and they know that, and they didn’t do anything to prevent it because when I went Saturday morning, they were cleaning. They were steaming the floors, and babies had already died,” Harry claimed.
“So, they knew it had an infection there. It’s just public now, so they want to make it look like they were doing something, but they weren’t doing anything.”
Deyalsingh apologises
to parents
Before Parliament yesterday, Health Minister Deyalsingh said his ministry, through the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, will investigate the matter, adding he requested CARIRI and PAHO be engaged as well.
Deyalsingh confirmed that seven babies died at the NICU between April 4 and 7 and offered condolences and sympathies to the families.
“Mr Deputy Speaker, the NWRHA has always implemented stringent infection prevention and control practices which are standard in the NICU. Immediately upon recognising the seriousness of the situation, existing escalated protocols were initiated by the NWRHA. These included inter alia, rigorous sanitisation and sterilisation.
“I am advised that senior doctors and nurses were present, providing care to the neonates, and parents were regularly updated on their babies’ condition. We recognise the emotional toll this has taken on the families, and all parents have been offered bereavement counselling by the NWRHA,” he said.
He added, “To the bereaved parents, please know that our thoughts are with you during this incredibly difficult time. We share in your grief and extend our deepest sympathies to you and your families.”
Mom who lost son in 2018:
I know their pain
In November 2018, Savita Basdeo-Lochan lost her baby boy, Jeremy Aiden Bernard, to neonatal sepsis at the San Fernando General Hospital.
She said reading about the recent deaths of the seven babies at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital had left her feeling a great sense of sadness.
“I sat down and was crying. I couldn’t even see what I was typing. I was sitting down and my husband asked me, you ok?
“It does keep coming back, you know … It doesn’t go away, you know, you just learn to live with it. You learn to accept it,” she said.
According to Basdeo-Lochan, like the seven babies who died in early April, her baby boy was also part of a group of babies who died from infections at the nursery. She said after her story went public in late 2018, other parents who lost their babies to neonatal sepsis at the hospital began reaching out to her. She alleged that the number of cases she learned about left her startled.
“They denied the wrongdoing of negligence for killing not only mine ... in that nursery … Other parents started to speak out. One woman was so distraught she wasn’t eating. She had a psychological break. My husband went clear. He wanted to kill all of them,” she recalled, breaking down in tears.
After seeking legal advice, attorneys informed her that the case was unlikely to succeed before the courts.