As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the death of six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois nears com­ple­tion, con­sul­tant in­tensivist Dr Anand Cha­toor­goon says it is not al­ways pos­si­ble to know for sure how a per­son may re­act when a drug is be­ing ad­min­is­tered.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Cha­toor­goon ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly. Al­though he is al­so a di­rec­tor at South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Cha­toor­goon said he was speak­ing not as di­rec­tor but as a con­sul­tant in­ten­sivist and anaes­thetist.

He said: “Jash­er’s death was painful and stress­ful to the par­ents, to the doc­tors, to the nurs­es, to the para­med­ical per­son­nel. As doc­tors and nurs­es, we are not there to hurt. And we are not there to de­stroy or kill. We are re­al­ly there to help and heal. But some­times pa­tients may not re­act in a way we ex­pect them to re­act.”

He re­vealed that un­cer­tain­ty ex­ists when­ev­er any­one is ad­min­is­ter­ing drugs.

“I can nev­er pre­dict with 100 per cent cer­tain­ty or ac­cu­ra­cy how you will re­spond to those drugs. I have an idea what the drugs can do, but I can­not pre­dict the depth or ex­tent of the ef­fect. Peo­ple are dif­fer­ent. Their bod­ies are dif­fer­ent,” he ex­plained.

He said the un­known el­e­ment is al­ways present in treat­ment.

“No­body sets out to hurt or to kill, and es­pe­cial­ly a child. But some­times when you come for treat­ment, it is pos­si­ble that you may have an ad­verse re­ac­tion to the drug. In this case, it was trag­ic be­cause the child died.”

Asked whether a doc­tor should have been present dur­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the drug, Cha­toor­goon said he could not speak specif­i­cal­ly to Jash­er’s case but out­lined gen­er­al prac­tice.

“If I feel a drug is dan­ger­ous, I may de­cide I will give it my­self rather than let a nurse give it. If a nurse is ad­min­is­ter­ing the drug and sees some­thing un­ex­pect­ed, she should stop and call the doc­tor. The nurse has the pre­rog­a­tive to refuse to con­tin­ue if she is not com­fort­able, and the doc­tor should then take over,” he said.

A four-mem­ber in­de­pen­dent team ap­point­ed by Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, on the in­struc­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the case and is ex­pect­ed to sub­mit a re­port on Au­gust 20.

The pan­el in­cludes Con­sul­tant Pae­di­a­tri­cian Dr Ca­ma­nee Lutch­man, reg­is­tered nurse and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance spe­cial­ist Clau­dine Shep­pard, for­mer NWRHA CEO Dr Eliz­a­beth Per­sad, and pae­di­atric in­ten­sive care spe­cial­ist and at­tor­ney Denelle Singh.

The com­mit­tee’s man­date is to de­ter­mine whether the prop­er stan­dard of care, clin­i­cal judge­ment, and pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were up­held.

Jash­er died at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing ad­min­is­tered an in­tra­venous drug.

He had been ad­mit­ted for a dry cough. The first au­top­sy found he died from as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis, like­ly trig­gered by vi­ral pneu­mo­nia. A sec­ond au­top­sy com­mis­sioned by his fam­i­ly al­so list­ed as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis, along with pleur­al pe­techi­ae, cyanosis of the ex­trem­i­ties, marked cere­bral oede­ma, and acute re­nal in­jury.

Jash­er’s fu­ner­al took place on Sat­ur­day at Bap­tist Am­bas­sadors Church, St John’s Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do.