Dr Sheila Ram­per­sad

Pub­lic Af­fairs Ed­i­tor

Nasty, ug­ly, cal­lous, ego­tis­ti­cal and un­be­com­ing of a min­is­ter and med­ical prac­ti­tion­er.Those were some of the ad­jec­tives used by for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, so­cial work­er and friend of the sex­tu­plets' fam­i­ly, Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, as she fired back at Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan's state­ments that the ba­bies' fa­ther, Kieron Cum­mings, was un­grate­ful.

Fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions in a T&T Guardian ex­clu­sive sto­ry last week that doc­tors at Mt Hope had rec­om­mend­ed over­seas treat­ment for the moth­er, Pe­tra Lee Foon, Cum­mings told the T&T Guardian that he wished they had sought med­ical treat­ment abroad. He said he was not sat­is­fied with the af­ter­care for his chil­dren, two of whom (the youngest, Pae­ton Christo­pher and the el­dest, Kaelon Nasir) have died. A third, Per­sia Meleigh, is still hos­pi­talised.

"We're now hear­ing that they (the par­ents) are un­grate­ful," said St Rose-Greaves dur­ing an in­ter­view on Fri­day. "We've heard from the min­is­ter that it was not a re­al preg­nan­cy, not a re­al birth."That be­hav­iour is very un­be­com­ing for a min­is­ter, far more from a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er. This is all about ego. The min­is­ter's in­ter­est in hav­ing the chil­dren born here was about him want­i­ng to look good. He didn't think fur­ther than that and he should have.

"We have a young moth­er who will ob­vi­ous­ly be hav­ing post-par­tum chal­lenges, who had a try­ing preg­nan­cy, par­ents who have lost two chil­dren in two weeks, wor­ry­ing about a third, and have three at home to care for as new par­ents–and no one pay­ing at­ten­tion to that."

Say­ing she con­sid­ers the sex­tu­plets a beau­ti­ful gift to the na­tion and an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the pub­lic health sys­tem to es­tab­lish best-prac­tice pro­to­col in deal­ing with all preg­nan­cies, St Rose-Greaves said Khan is re­spon­si­ble for set­ting a neg­a­tive tone for pub­lic dis­cus­sion about the ba­bies."I didn't want this to be a street fight. The min­is­ter has squan­dered the good­will about these chil­dren, just like the Gov­ern­ment squan­dered the good­will of the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion."

Grat­i­tude

She said the fam­i­ly has been and re­mains grate­ful to the doc­tors, nurs­es, con­sul­tants and an­cil­lary staff at the Mt Hope Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU) and knows that they all did their best."Even the peo­ple clean­ing the wards and serv­ing the food were thrilled by the ex­pect­ed de­liv­ery. They treat­ed the cou­ple very well and we could not help but ad­mire them. That has not changed.

"We didn't have the equip­ment but we got some of that–but if you didn't have the ex­pe­ri­ence then you can­not ex­pect the ex­per­tise. From very ear­ly the doc­tors ad­mit­ted they did not have the ex­pe­ri­ence. The chal­lenge is that you can­not get out of some­thing what is not there."The cou­ple didn't get up one morn­ing and de­cide they want­ed to go away; it was on the ad­vice of peo­ple in the health sys­tem it­self. If he didn't want to car­ry them abroad, why not bring in spe­cial­ists?"

The head mid­wife at the hos­pi­tal told I95.5FM on Fri­day that she and the nurs­es were hurt by Cum­mings' state­ment."Why are they and the min­is­ter tak­ing this so per­son­al­ly? What is their hurt, com­pared to the par­ents' pain of los­ing their chil­dren?" asked St Rose-Greaves.

HDC house

She said Khan's com­ments about the cou­ple be­ing "giv­en" an HDC home showed he did not un­der­stand the rights of cit­i­zen­ship."The Gov­ern­ment didn't give them a house. They have to pay $375,000 for it. They are cit­i­zens, they qual­i­fy for a home, they sub­mit­ted their ap­pli­ca­tion years ago, and every cit­i­zen has a right to ap­ply for and be con­sid­ered to own a home."Is he say­ing that be­cause they were good to the cou­ple, if they (the cou­ple) are not com­fort­able with some­thing, they should shut up and not ex­press that?"

Mon­ey

On the mon­ey ex­pend­ed on the sex­tu­plets, St Rose-Greaves said she want­ed Khan to quan­ti­fy the cost of a child's life."See­ing that he is quan­ti­fy­ing how much mon­ey was spent on the de­liv­ery and care, what is the price of a child's life?"This is not a case of the equip­ment brought in and they went home with it or threw it away.

"The equip­ment was need­ed in the sys­tem. Per­haps the min­is­ter can give the pub­lic an out­line of when the equip­ment was bought, when it ar­rived and how it was utilised for the chil­dren. Let him an­swer that."He makes me won­der how much of a pri­or­i­ty chil­dren are.

Near­ly $1 mil­lion a month spent in rental of One Alexan­dra Place for the past three years and no one has oc­cu­pied that build­ing be­cause it's seen as be­long­ing to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. How do these chil­dren com­pare to $10 mil­lion to bring Shaq, to the mil­lions spent on PR gim­micks and fan­cy func­tions with food and drinks?

"Let him re­lease the fig­ures spent on (Patrick) Man­ning and (Jus­tice Wen­dell) Kan­ga­loo (who was in­jured in a car ac­ci­dent on May 20 and flown to Johns Hop­kins Hos­pi­tal, Bal­ti­more, and then to the Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion In­sti­tute in Chica­go)."The Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty can­not get the mon­ey it needs be­cause of quib­bling over rent be­cause the build­ing al­leged­ly be­longs to the wrong peo­ple...peo­ple are fly­ing to see the world on tax­pay­ers' mon­ey."

Ethics and fer­til­i­ty treat­ment

She ques­tioned the ethics of Khan pub­licly re­veal­ing de­tails of Lee Foon's med­ical records."The fact that he was will­ing to go pub­lic with the girl's pri­vate med­ical in­for­ma­tion said a lot about him. It is not his place to be so con­fronta­tion­al. But per­haps I am ex­pect­ing from him what he does not have to give.

"How does a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er not un­der­stand the ethics of shar­ing con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion? He keeps talk­ing about fer­til­i­ty drugs to bam­boo­zle the pub­lic that this girl went look­ing to have six chil­dren, and he knows the truth and he knew it from day one."

Con­fi­dence in health sys­tem

"How could we have con­fi­dence when our ma­ter­nal and in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rates are so as­tound­ing? We all know about women go­ing in (to hos­pi­tals) healthy to have ba­bies and com­ing out dead, with­out their wombs, or with­out their ba­bies. De­liv­ery rooms have turned in­to morgues. So it's not about not hav­ing con­fi­dence; it's deal­ing with our re­al­i­ty.

"If he say­ing we don't have con­fi­dence in the sys­tem, why do min­is­ters and lead­ers leave for care else­where? If they have con­fi­dence in the sys­tem, I am chal­leng­ing them to go through what peo­ple go through dai­ly. Go sit down in the hos­pi­tals and scrub bench like oth­er peo­ple. We have young, good, car­ing doc­tors in the sys­tem but with men­tors like Fuad, they will be­come jad­ed, cal­lous, cold, un­car­ing, self­ish, and ego­tis­ti­cal. I trust the min­is­ter puts his busi­ness in place while he's a min­is­ter be­cause when he is no longer he will see how it's not easy for peo­ple who don't have."

Care plan and coun­selling

An­swer­ing state­ments by Khan and Dr She­henaz Mo­hammed (chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty) that deaths among mul­ti­ple-birth ba­bies are not un­com­mon, St Rose-Greaves said she was flab­ber­gast­ed that that was the on­ly stan­dard to which they were as­pir­ing."So we on­ly want to con­form to sta­tis­tics on deaths? We don't want to set a high­er stan­dard? And what about the mul­ti­ple births where all the chil­dren are alive and well? Oc­to­mom had eight and they're all alive.

Khan, she point­ed out, "talked about con­gen­i­tal mal­for­ma­tion in the chil­dren. Where is his proof of that? Were post-mortems done to de­ter­mine cause of death?"She said the nurs­ing coun­cil was to de­vise a care plan for the ba­bies."Where is that plan? When was Dr Mo­hammed put in charge and when did they go in­to full gear? Let him talk about that, since he is so free with in­for­ma­tion.

"The cou­ple is griev­ing; what has been done to help them with their grief and loss? What was the plan for the coun­selling? Who did it? What was their area of ex­per­tise? How many ses­sions? Which fam­i­ly mem­bers were coun­selled? What were the ob­jec­tives and the out­comes of the coun­selling? Let him tell me that."

Say­ing that she and the fam­i­ly will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed by Khan, St Rose-Greaves said ag­gres­sion among young peo­ple is con­demned but the two par­ents, who are gen­tle and soft, are be­ing ver­bal­ly beat­en up be­cause they are not ag­gres­sive."I heard the mid­wife say on I95.5FM that Kieron is be­ing mis­guid­ed.

The min­is­ter seems to think that Kieron is my nephew. I want him to know he doesn't have to wor­ry about Kieron be­ing my nephew. I have nephews and nieces all over Trinidad. They serve meals in the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, they are in the coast guard, army, po­lice, among the Prime Min­is­ter's se­cu­ri­ty, in every in­sti­tu­tion and com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try. So Kieron should be the least of his wor­ries."