The moth­er of one of sev­er­al new­born ba­bies who died at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal be­lieves she and her fam­i­ly are now blessed with a new guardian an­gel to look over them and guide their path­way. It is the on­ly com­fort and so­lace 21-year-old Danyelle Sama­roo could find as she strug­gles to come to terms with the death of her ba­by, Aarya Raya Chater­goon.

Sama­roo is among a grow­ing list of fam­i­lies who have come for­ward seek­ing le­gal ac­tion against the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) over the deaths of their ba­bies in the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU).

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as­sured that Gov­ern­ment will leave no stone un­turned to find out what led to ba­bies’ deaths.

Dur­ing an emo­tion­al in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sama­roo said the death of her ba­by is so over­whelm­ing she finds it hard to even get out of bed most days. She ex­plained how joy and ex­cite­ment over­flowed in the months lead­ing up to her daugh­ter’s birth.

“For me, it was just be­ing a moth­er and hav­ing a fam­i­ly of my own be­cause that was some­thing that was re­al­ly im­por­tant to me, hav­ing my own fam­i­ly and grow­ing from there. We se­lect­ed her name Aarya Raya, we knew we want­ed a dif­fer­ent name but al­so a name that aligned with our re­li­gion as well,” she ex­plained.

Sama­roo de­scribed how what be­gan as a nor­mal pro­ce­dure on March 26 to de­liv­er her ba­by spi­ralled in­to a night­mare.

“I was trans­ferred from Mt Hope hos­pi­tal due to them not hav­ing space in the NICU and when I got there (PoS­GH), af­ter try­ing for a nor­mal birth, I even­tu­al­ly had a C-sec­tion. The pain was ter­ri­ble but I mus­tered the strength and will to go down and see her,” she re­called.

At the time, the young moth­er said her lit­tle girl, who cap­tured the fam­i­ly’s heart, ap­peared healthy and nor­mal.

“Two days af­ter, when I was able to walk I went down to the NICU and it was the hap­pi­est mo­ment of my life, when they told me who she was. I was filled with so much joy it was over­whelm­ing. At the time, I was un­able to hold her be­cause she had oxy­gen tubes and feed­ing tubes and so on, so just to be safe we were not al­lowed to hold her.”

Sama­roo said every day she and her part­ner vis­it­ed their child and en­quired about her health and well-be­ing, al­ways be­ing as­sured by hos­pi­tal staff that she was pro­gress­ing well.

“It was amaz­ing to see how she was do­ing. They told us she would be re­leased soon, and she’d come home soon.”

The San Juan res­i­dent said she was lat­er in­formed that lit­tle Aarya need­ed a blood trans­fu­sion due to her in­abil­i­ty to di­gest food prop­er­ly.

“Af­ter the trans­fu­sion, we in­quired if every­thing was okay, they as­sured us it was suc­cess­ful. We want­ed to make sure there were no com­pli­ca­tions.”

The young moth­er said her world came crash­ing down on April 5 when she re­ceived a call in­form­ing her Aarya’s con­di­tion had tak­en a turn for the worse.

“I know I left her in good con­di­tion, af­ter that call I dropped on the floor and start­ed cry­ing. Her dad rushed to the hos­pi­tal and saw them try­ing to re­sus­ci­tate her. When I got there about 45 min­utes lat­er she had all these tubes con­nect­ed to her, she was bare­ly breath­ing. It was so very emo­tion­al, she had on her go­ing home out­fit and around 6.18 pm she died in our arms,” she cried.

Sama­roo said when her daugh­ter died, no one at the hos­pi­tal said what caused her demise.

“We did not know about any bac­te­ria that was present be­cause we asked every day if every­thing is okay, is there any­thing we should be wor­ried about. They told us it was a bac­te­ria she de­vel­oped.”

Aarya was laid to rest and since then, Sama­roo said her life has been filled with heartache.

“Every­day is get­ting pro­gres­sive­ly worse for me, just the thought of her not be­ing there, not be­ing around, it has been chal­leng­ing and over­whelm­ing. It is hard to make it out of bed some days. We have her blan­ket that she would have left NICU with and I sleep with it every night, it is so hard to let go of things,” she said as she wept.

Asked if she be­lieves there was neg­li­gence on the part of hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials, Sama­roo ad­mit­ted there were some things that raised red flags.

“It’s a neona­tal in­ten­sive care unit, it’s an ICU for a rea­son, the prop­er pro­to­cols weren’t be­ing fol­lowed. That same day when I vis­it­ed my ba­by, they were not even han­dling her with gloves to re-in­sert the in­serts in her hand. A prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be done.”

Sama­roo said they wel­come the probe in­to the deaths of the ba­bies and en­cour­aged af­fect­ed fam­i­lies to keep pray­ing.