Kevon Felmine

T&T record­ed its fourth con­firmed death from the high­ly con­ta­gious H1N1 In­fluen­za (swine flu), which ac­count­ed for over 14,000 deaths world­wide in 2009.

Ac­cord­ing to a copy of a death cer­tifi­cate ob­tained by the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Siparia moth­er Cher­rie Ryce, 46, died of swine flu at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last Sat­ur­day af­ter be­ing ward­ed there for just over a week.The death cer­tifi­cate cer­ti­fied by Prof Hu­bert Dais­ley stat­ed the cause of death as "H1N1 in­fluen­za, di­a­betes mel­li­tus and type 2 hy­per­ten­sion."

Now Ryce's rel­a­tives are call­ing on the Health Min­istry to probe a pos­si­ble cov­er-up at the hos­pi­tal, say­ing she may have con­tract­ed the virus while stay­ing in a ward that med­ical staff la­belled as an "in­fec­tious ward."Ryce's sis­ter, whose name was with­held be­cause of her job, said she was told there may have been oth­er swine flu-re­lat­ed cas­es and deaths at the hos­pi­tal for the year.

A staff mem­ber at the hos­pi­tal said there were sus­pect­ed cas­es of swine flu and when pa­tients die, their cause of death were giv­en as pneu­mo­nia.Af­ter Ryce's death, her daugh­ter, Jen­nel, and ten-month-old grand­son, Isa­iah, were quar­an­tined at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal for three days hav­ing vis­it­ed her on Oc­to­ber 14.

The sis­ter said Ryce was un­able to walk prop­er­ly due to an in­jury sus­tained in a child­hood ac­ci­dent.She said Ryce was an out­pa­tient at the hos­pi­tal for years as she suf­fered with di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and oth­er ail­ments, and was even ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) af­ter slip­ping in­to a co­ma.

Re­cent­ly she un­der­went an eye surgery and due to med­ical com­pli­ca­tions, she was en­rolled in a clin­ic.She ex­plained that when Ryce went to the hos­pi­tal for a sched­ule clin­ic ap­point­ment on Oc­to­ber 8, she was do­ing well and had no symp­toms of the cold or swine flu. She added that her sis­ter has nev­er left the coun­try and had no for­eign vis­i­tors in re­cent times.

Based on her med­ical con­di­tion, fur­ther tests were need­ed and Ryce was ad­mit­ted to a ward where she said pa­tients and doc­tors wore mask.

"Even while she was sus­pect­ed of hav­ing H1N1, the doc­tor at ICU told us there were oth­er cas­es at the ward where she was and even one at ICU. We were told that there were cas­es of H1N1 since the last ad­min­is­tra­tion but when pa­tients die, they put the cause as pneu­mo­nia," the sis­ter said.

She added that when an­oth­er sis­ter vis­it­ed on Oc­to­ber 10 with her new-born ba­by, staff there told her that the child was not al­lowed be­cause it was an in­fec­tious ward. On Oc­to­ber 14, Jen­nel and Isa­iah vis­it­ed Ryce at the hos­pi­tal.

Ryce's sis­ter said: "It was Sat­ur­day when the pathol­o­gist found out her cause of death. He told Jen­nel to check her son out at the ward be­cause he got the cold af­ter vis­it­ing his grand­moth­er. She took him to ca­su­al­ty where she wait­ed for two hours be­fore the doc­tor called her.

"They gave the ba­by a neb­u­liz­er, took blood from him and quar­an­tined both of them in a room at the teach­ing hos­pi­tal by them­selves.

"They told her that she had to re­main there un­til Sun­day when a spe­cial doc­tor would come to see them. For three days doc­tors came wear­ing spe­cial suits. They pushed food through a hole for them to eat un­til they were dis­charged on Mon­day evening."

Ryce's sis­ter said Jen­nel and Isa­iah re­turned to the hos­pi­tal for a re­view yes­ter­day but doc­tors told them more tests need­ed to be done to de­ter­mine whether he has swine flu.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, med­ical di­rec­tor of SFGH Dr Anand Chat­ter­goon said he was un­aware of the death and would be speak­ing with Prof Dais­ley to learn more. He said he tried con­tact­ing Dais­ley yes­ter­day with­out suc­cess.

Pan­dem­ic

Ac­cord­ing to the Eu­ro­pean Cen­tre for Dis­ease Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol (ECDC), 14,286 peo­ple died world­wide dur­ing the 2009 swine flu pan­dem­ic of which there were 237 deaths in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean re­gion.Bar­ba­dos con­firmed four cas­es; Cu­ba, one; Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, 93 and Ja­maica, 33. One death was con­firmed in Trinidad, with sev­er­al oth­er be­ing treat­ed for the virus.

How­ev­er, there were sev­er­al oth­er sus­pect­ed deaths in 2009. There were al­so two con­firmed swine flu deaths in 2013.

Deyals­ingh: We are on top of it

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said he was in­formed of swine flu risk yes­ter­day and a state­ment would be made soon by act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Clive Tilluck­d­har­ry.How­ev­er, he said he would keep a keen eye out as he al­lowed med­ical ex­perts to do their jobs, say­ing his role as min­is­ter was to set poli­cies.

"The act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Clive Tilluck­d­har­ry, at a heads of de­part­ments meet­ing this morn­ing brought us ful­ly up to date and he will be mak­ing a state­ment soon.

"We are on top of it but my way of man­ag­ing the min­istry is that those clos­est to the is­sue will be the one mak­ing state­ments but I will be keep­ing a close eye. It will be derelict of me if I don't," Deyals­ingh added.

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Ex-health min­is­ter:Be on the alert

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, for­mer health min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan Re­cent­ly said there was a resur­gence of the H1N1 virus in In­dia and oth­er parts of Asia in the past month which has in­fect­ed thou­sands and may have caused a dozen deaths in that re­gion.He said it was im­per­a­tive that lo­cal au­thor­i­ties be on alert giv­en T&T close ties with coun­tries in that re­gion.

"Though we have suf­fered ca­su­al­ties of this virus dur­ing the pan­dem­ic in 2009, un­der my guid­ance, the Min­istry of Health took steps to en­sure that our health fa­cil­i­ties were ful­ly equipped to treat with this dis­ease should it ever pose a threat to our na­tion and pre­vent any fur­ther loss of life.

"At this stage there is no rea­son for pan­ic, for as long as those counter-mea­sures are en­forced and we as a na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty re­mains vig­i­lant for both our­selves and our neigh­bours, the cit­i­zens of this coun­try can re­main safe and pro­tect­ed from this virus," Khan said.He said the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion should al­so be on alert to con­duct screen­ing of peo­ple com­ing to T&T from the af­fect­ed coun­tries as well as pre­pare med­ical fa­cil­i­ties to dis­pense vac­ci­na­tion and treat­ment of the dis­ease.

He al­so ad­vised that any­one trav­el­ing to or re­turn­ing to the South Asian re­gion should be aware of the po­ten­tial risk of swine flu and seek vac­ci­na­tion, prac­tise prop­er hy­giene and mon­i­tor symp­toms like the sea­son­al flu as the virus is con­ta­gious. He added that young adults and preg­nant women were at high risk of con­tract­ing the dis­ease.