An In­de­pen­dent Com­mit­tee has be­gun in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of six-year-old Yash­er Fran­cois, as rel­a­tives con­firmed the sec­ond au­top­sy has been resched­uled for Sun­day.

The pro­ce­dure, which was ex­pect­ed to be done on Sat­ur­day at Guides Fu­ner­al Home in San Fer­nan­do, was post­poned be­cause the fa­cil­i­ty had been ful­ly booked.

Yash­er’s fa­ther, Aaron Fran­cois, said Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe had spo­ken to him at length, promis­ing a full, ur­gent and fair in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as well as oth­er sup­port. He not­ed the Com­mit­tee set up by Dr Bo­doe did not in­clude per­son­nel from the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal or the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

Fran­cois said rel­a­tives from abroad will ar­rive this week ahead of Yash­er’s fu­ner­al on Au­gust 16.

“I know they have a coun­try to run and they are busy, yet the Min­is­ter made the time to call me, and for that I am grate­ful be­cause af­ter speak­ing to him, I felt bet­ter,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to or­der a ful­ly in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent, say­ing in­ter­nal re­views alone were not enough to un­cov­er the full truth.

The fam­i­ly has re­ject­ed the find­ings of an au­top­sy done at the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary, which list­ed the cause of death as as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis like­ly trig­gered by vi­ral pneu­mo­nia.

As­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis is a se­ri­ous lung con­di­tion caused by the in­hala­tion of for­eign sub­stances such as vom­it or sali­va, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pa­tients whose res­pi­ra­to­ry de­fences are weak­ened by in­fec­tion. It can lead to in­flam­ma­tion, pneu­mo­nia and, in se­vere cas­es, death.

The fam­i­ly has been ad­vised to con­sid­er le­gal ac­tion on the grounds that mag­ne­sium sul­phate was ad­min­is­tered de­spite Yash­er hav­ing an ad­verse re­ac­tion. The com­pound is used to treat con­di­tions such as eclamp­sia, se­vere asth­ma at­tacks and some seizures, but is not a stan­dard treat­ment for pneu­mo­nia.

The fam­i­ly said Yash­er had been ad­mit­ted for a dry cough and was nev­er in crit­i­cal con­di­tion un­til the drug was giv­en in­tra­venous­ly.