Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A 30-year-old moth­er of two girls who dreamt of giv­ing birth to a son was robbed of rais­ing him af­ter he died at the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU) at the Port-of-Spain Ma­ter­ni­ty De­part­ment.

Ru­mani Williams died on April 6 at 9.24 pm. He was one of the sev­en in­fants who died be­tween April 2 and 9 at the NICU.

His moth­er, Shaquille Har­ry, told the Sun­day Guardian that she al­ways want­ed a son, and af­ter giv­ing birth via emer­gency C-sec­tion and los­ing him, it was dev­as­tat­ing. Har­ry was giv­en a boy’s name (Shaquille) by her grand­moth­er, who des­per­ate­ly want­ed a grand­son. Like her grand­moth­er, Har­ry yearned to raise a boy.

Ac­cord­ing to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty yes­ter­day by at­tor­neys from Free­dom Law Cham­bers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Har­ry de­tailed how, at just 31 weeks preg­nant, she had to un­der­go emer­gency surgery to save the life of Ru­mani, who weighed just 1.3 kilo­grammes.

The let­ter said she was told on March 20, a day af­ter his birth, that Ru­mani need­ed to be ward­ed at the NICU un­til he gained weight. On April 6, at 9.24 pm, he was de­clared dead. For the ma­jor­i­ty of the 18 days he was alive, Ru­mani was do­ing well and pro­gress­ing, the let­ter said.

The let­ter added, “On Mon­day 1st April 2024, our client vis­it­ed her ba­by and was elat­ed to see him breath­ing on his own. She was ad­vised by the doc­tor that in a few days, he would be moved to the step-down area as he was pro­gress­ing well. They in­creased his feeds from 13 mil­li­l­itres to 22 mil­li­l­itres, and she was al­lowed to hold him. Our client breathed a sigh of re­lief up­on hear­ing that she would soon be able to take her ba­by home.”

A day af­ter be­ing told that she could take her child home, Har­ry was told that her son need­ed oxy­gen, was re­ceiv­ing an­tibi­otics, and need­ed blood. Dur­ing the fi­nal four days, Ru­mani be­came pro­gres­sive­ly worse.

The first in­di­ca­tion the par­ents re­ceived that their child had an in­fec­tion was on April 3, when of­fi­cials at the hos­pi­tal said they were un­sure of the type of in­fec­tion and were un­able to de­ter­mine the ap­pro­pri­ate an­tibi­otics.

“Our client was told that they would iso­late ba­by Ru­mani to pre­vent the spread to oth­er ba­bies.” The let­ter said there was, how­ev­er, an­oth­er ba­by al­ready in the iso­la­tion room in a high­ly in­fec­tious state.

“Our client was in­formed by a nurse that her ba­by had an in­fec­tion and bac­te­ria, but they were un­sure which fam­i­ly the bac­te­ria was from or what type of in­fec­tion it was. They stat­ed that they were test­ing his blood in phas­es to de­ter­mine this in­for­ma­tion.”

The day their ba­by died, Har­ry and her part­ner, Kadeem Williams, were told that he con­tract­ed jaun­dice af­ter notic­ing that he had a yel­low­ish hue. The let­ter added that his platelets dropped to five. Hours lat­er, they were in­formed that he had died.

Har­ry said she felt be­trayed by of­fi­cials at the hos­pi­tal, who kept in­sist­ing that the on­ly rea­son Ru­mani need­ed to be in the NICU was for him to gain weight.

She said, “They could have said there was an in­fec­tion on the ward, and they could not have put ba­bies there and cleaned and sani­tised. What they are try­ing to do now, they should have done be­fore.”

Har­ry said she nev­er knew that there was an is­sue at the hos­pi­tal, and on­ly when she re­turned three days lat­er to col­lect her son’s death cer­tifi­cate did she meet two oth­er moth­ers whose in­fants al­so died.

“At first, I didn’t re­al­ly pay much mind be­cause I was go­ing through a lot, and then I mes­saged Kadeem and said some­thing was go­ing on in this hos­pi­tal, this not mak­ing no sense.”

Har­ry said the feel­ing of hav­ing her hopes snatched away was one she could not de­scribe.

“To say I am cop­ing is not a nice feel­ing be­cause I al­ways want­ed a boy, and to get him and lose him, I don’t think I can ex­plain how I’m feel­ing.”