Kay­marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay­marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

With a spike in in­fant mor­tal­i­ty, pub­lic bat­tles among state of­fi­cials and a shark at­tack, Trin­bag­o­ni­ans spent the start of the new quar­ter weep­ing for the na­tion’s ba­bies, try­ing to keep up with the pub­lic po­lit­i­cal bat­tles and be­ing at­tacked by more than just crim­i­nals.

News that four-year-old Ama­rah Lal­lite was be­head­ed ini­tial­ly rocked the na­tion at its core.

The grue­some killing and dis­mem­ber­ing of the in­fant oc­curred on April 8 at her Five Rivers, Arou­ca home.

She was al­leged­ly mur­dered by some­one who was close to her.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, some­time be­tween 10 pm and mid­night, the sus­pect killed lit­tle Ama­rah, while the child’s moth­er Tri­cia Vil­lare­al went to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion to file a do­mes­tic dis­tur­bance re­port against him.

Po­lice re­ports in­di­cate that Vil­lare­al ar­rived at the sta­tion around 10.10 pm to lodge a re­port of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and begged for po­lice in­ter­ven­tion.

When of­fi­cers sub­se­quent­ly went to her res­i­dence, the doors were locked and the house was in dark­ness.

The of­fi­cers called the sus­pect’s name sev­er­al times and he emerged bare­backed, on­ly wear­ing three-quar­ter pants.

The of­fi­cers in­struct­ed the moth­er to car­ry out a wel­fare check for the child and that’s when she dis­cov­ered her be­head­ed daugh­ter.

Po­lice re­ports re­vealed the lit­tle girl was killed in one bed­room, af­ter which her body was dragged in­to an­oth­er bed­room, and her head was stashed in a bar­rel at the back of the house.

An au­top­sy re­port con­clud­ed that she died from blunt force trau­ma to the head and de­cap­i­ta­tion.

When Guardian Me­dia spoke to Vil­l­lare­al, she said she nev­er thought the sus­pect would have done any­thing like that. She said he loved Ama­rah and nev­er showed any signs of vi­o­lence in the past.

Mean­while, the child’s fa­ther, Shan­non Lal­lite, said he tried his best but failed to gain cus­tody of his daugh­ter.

Isan Con­tant, Ama­rah’s 38-year-old step­fa­ther was charged with her mur­der on April 12 and is now in jail on re­mand.

Ama­rah was laid to rest on April 20.

In­fec­tion at NWRHA

While Ama­rah’s moth­er got to spend her first four years with her, some par­ents didn’t even get one week.

Be­tween April 4 and 9, sev­en ba­bies, all un­der 32 weeks, died of neona­tal sep­sis at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU).

Re­veal­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry test re­sults, the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) said de­spite ad­min­is­ter­ing high dosages of an­tibi­otics and pro­vid­ing ad­vanced and in­ten­sive car­dio-res­pi­ra­to­ry sup­port, the ba­bies died as a re­sult of in­fec­tion.

The lab­o­ra­to­ry tests de­tect­ed the pres­ence of three dan­ger­ous or­gan­isms – Ser­ra­tia marce­sens, ES­BL Kleb­siel­la pneu­mo­ni­ae and Kleb­siel­la aero­genes.

How­ev­er, the be­reaved par­ents be­lieved their in­fants died due to the ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the hos­pi­tal, with one par­ent claim­ing while her ba­by was in the NICU, an­oth­er ba­by had an in­fec­tion which caused a wide­spread in­fec­tion to the oth­ers.

Oth­er par­ents told Guardian Me­dia the deaths came as a ter­ri­ble sur­prise, be­cause lead­ing up to the deaths their ba­bies were all healthy. The par­ents sub­se­quent­ly joined to­geth­er to file a class ac­tion law­suit for med­ical neg­li­gence against the hos­pi­tal.

The sev­en par­ents in­clud­ed Shaniya Ray­mond-Adams, Sherise Moore-Beck­les, Natasha Samuel, Shaquille Har­ry, Danyelle Sama­roo, Tinelle Saun­ders and Jodie Moli­no. Rep­re­sent­ing them was for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC.

Af­ter the news broke, oth­er par­ents be­gan com­ing for­ward shar­ing that their ba­bies al­so died be­cause of neona­tal sep­sis in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. The par­ents all ex­pressed grave dis­ap­point­ment and dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the ex­pla­na­tions giv­en sur­round­ing their ba­bies’ deaths.

On April 16, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh an­nounced that the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) would con­duct an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ba­bies’ deaths.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so as­sured the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment would leave no stone un­turned to find out what led to the ba­bies’ deaths.

On April 18, NWRHA’s head of the In­fec­tion Pre­ven­tion Con­trol Unit Dar­rel Jones was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing the out­come of par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

On April 21, three PA­HO ex­perts ar­rived in Trinidad to probe the deaths of ba­bies. The ex­perts were Prof Emer­i­tus-in-res­i­dent Pro­fes­sor of Pe­di­atrics, Glob­al Health and Epi­demi­ol­o­gy at the George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton DC, USA, Dr Nali­ni Singh MD, MPH; Clin­i­cal Mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist, Head of Mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gy, Cen­trode Asis­ten­cia Med­ica So­ri­ano and ex­pert in IPC, AMS Dr Grisel Ro­driguez, MD, PH, who is PA­HO’s in­ter­na­tion­al con­sul­tant based in Uruguay; and New­born In­ten­sive Care Spe­cial­ist and head of the Neona­tal Care In­ten­sive Unit at the Queen Eliz­a­beth Hos­pi­tal, Bar­ba­dos Dr Gillian Birch­wood, MD.

Ac­cord­ing to NWRHA CEO An­tho­ny Blake, the in­ves­tiga­tive team met with NWRHA’s man­age­ment team on April 21 and their ini­tial dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed the scope of ref­er­ence for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and they al­so re­quest­ed rel­e­vant doc­u­ments.

Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh al­so made it clear he would not be in­volved in the in­quiry, but this did not stop the spread of ru­mours that the hos­pi­tal was cov­er­ing up the re­al cause of the deaths. The hos­pi­tal de­nied that the probe was a cov­er-up.

Af­ter a five-day in­ves­tiga­tive pe­ri­od, the probe was com­plet­ed on April 26. The re­sults of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed sys­tem­at­ic is­sues in the NICU but they were not im­me­di­ate­ly shared with the par­ents.

DNA con­firms re­mains as

Han­nah Mathu­ra

Mean­while, the find­ings of an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that the hu­man re­mains found buried in the back­yard of a house in Val­sayn were in­deed those of Han­nah Mathu­ra.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, be­tween April 17 and 18, in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­ceived the DNA re­sults.

The re­sults con­firmed the bones found dur­ing a search by the po­lice were in fact those of 18-year-old Mathu­ra, who, ac­cord­ing to one of her rel­a­tives, was killed and buried in the back­yard in June 2017.

Shark at­tack

in To­ba­go

From tragedy on land to tragedy at sea. To­bag­o­ni­ans were scared to shore on April 26 af­ter a shark at­tacked a tourist.

What was in­tend­ed to be a beau­ti­ful va­ca­tion on the is­land of To­ba­go for a male tourist, took a turn for the worse af­ter he was at­tacked by a bull shark while swim­ming at Cour­land Bay, al­so known as Tur­tle Beach.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, 64-year-old British na­tion­al Pe­ter Smith was at­tacked at 9.15 a.m. on April 26.

The shark then tried to at­tack a woman bathing at Grafton Bay, near the Grafton Beach ho­tel, just min­utes away from the first at­tack.

The shark was es­ti­mat­ed to be be­tween eight to 10 feet in length and two feet in width. De­spite ef­forts to cap­ture the shark, it was sight­ed the fol­low­ing day. This led to the clo­sure of 10 beach­es along To­ba­go’s west coast for sev­er­al days. A $10,000 boun­ty was ini­tial­ly placed on the bull shark’s head, but that was quick­ly re­called by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

Smith, a fa­ther of two from Berkham­st­ed, Hert­ford­shire suf­fered se­vere in­juries, in­clud­ing dam­age to his left arm and leg, and lac­er­a­tions on his ab­domen.

Smith had a blood trans­fu­sion, and doc­tors suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged to save and reat­tach his limbs and his wounds were stitched and treat­ed.

Fol­low­ing sev­er­al surg­eries at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Smith was air­lift­ed out of To­ba­go to Mi­a­mi. He has since said he will re­turn to To­ba­go again de­spite the at­tack.

More dis­si­dents rise

in the UNC

On the po­lit­i­cal front, sev­er­al dis­si­dent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MPs de­mand­ed po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar call the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion sched­uled for June, as they said it was time for some in­ter­nal re­struc­tur­ing.

Join­ing his col­league Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly was the sec­ond UNC dis­si­dent to raise sev­er­al con­cerns, in­clud­ing how de­ci­sions were made in the par­ty to the lack of trans­paren­cy in how the par­ty’s funds are spent.

Hold­ing noth­ing back, Ram­bal­ly said the UNC’s in­abil­i­ty to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion stemmed from the con­tin­ued fail­ure of the lead­er­ship of Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He went fur­ther to say Per­sad-Bisses­sar had cre­at­ed a “cult of per­son­al­i­ty” with­in the par­ty, warn­ing that if she con­tin­ued as the leader, the coun­try could be in grave dan­ger.

But amid calls for her to re­lin­quish the lead­er­ship reins of the UNC, Per­sad-Bisses­sar made it clear that she would not be moved. She warned the MPs to not take her “kind­ness for weak­ness” and said she could not and would not be con­trolled by any in­di­vid­ual or group pro­mot­ing any sin­gu­lar agen­da at the ex­pense of oth­ers.

She al­so called for uni­ty with­in the par­ty.

MPs Paray, Ram­bal­ly, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir were the five dis­si­dents who cam­paigned for the in­ter­nal elec­tion.

If the pub­lic didn’t get enough of the pub­lic po­lit­i­cal bat­tles for the year, Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wan­tee Ram­dass and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­so went head-to-head over the le­git­i­ma­cy of T&T’s 2023 rev­enue da­ta.

The is­sue arose when the Fi­nance Min­istry at­tempt­ed to alert Ram­dass to a $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment of Gov­ern­ment’s 2023 rev­enue, which Im­bert blamed on a dig­i­tal sys­tem im­ple­ment­ed to deal with tax re­fund cheques.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, staff at the Fi­nance Min­istry at­tempt­ed to cor­rect the er­ror af­ter pick­ing it up but Ram­dass ini­tial­ly de­clined, stat­ing that the Jan­u­ary 31st dead­line for pre­sent­ing it to her had passed.

Sur­prised by her ap­par­ent ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach, a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was is­sued to her and this fu­elled their pub­lic and le­gal bat­tle.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour al­so slammed Ram­dass, call­ing her con­duct “alarm­ing” and “bizarre.”

But, Ram­dass’ at­tor­ney lat­er ar­gued that the Fi­nance Min­istry un­eth­i­cal­ly back­dat­ed the amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts to cov­er a fi­nan­cial mis­take of un­prece­dent­ed mag­ni­tude.

Im­bert out­right re­fut­ed these al­le­ga­tions.

On April 26, the Gov­ern­ment passed a mo­tion in the low­er house seek­ing to ex­tend the time to present in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al by at least four months.

The le­gal bat­tle be­tween Im­bert and Ram­dass is still on­go­ing in the courts.

Mur­ders con­tin­ued

to climb

When it comes to crime, there were 180 mur­ders record­ed up to April 30.

This in­clud­ed the fa­tal stab­bing of 46-year-old Im­ti­az Mo­hammed and his 23-year-old son Im­raz Mo­hammed, who were both killed while lim­ing at their Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co home, as well as the death of prison in­mate Sher­lon Brown, af­ter a fra­cas in the Port of-Spain prison.

Ni­quan mass lay­offs

While some lost loved ones, oth­ers lost their jobs in the month of April.

On April 23, Ni­Quan ter­mi­nat­ed 75 em­ploy­ees as it pre­pared to moth­ball its Pointe-a-Pierre plant, which had been in “sleep” mode. The ter­mi­na­tion no­tices were shared via email to staff.

Ni­Quan’s founder and di­rec­tor Ains­ley Gill said the com­pa­ny had run out of mon­ey try­ing to keep the plant op­er­a­tional.

Massy may­hem

Al­so in the busi­ness sec­tor, one for­mer Massy ex­ec­u­tive al­leged she was ver­bal­ly abused and forced out of the com­pa­ny.

On April 14, Massy Hold­ings re­leased the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of its three-month in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions by its for­mer ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of Busi­ness In­tegri­ty and Gen­er­al Coun­sel An­gelique Parisot-Pot­ter.

In­clud­ed in the 13-page let­ter, Parisot-Pot­ter al­leged that dur­ing train­ing ses­sions, Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing for­mer Massy Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Ger­vase Warn­er, claimed to con­trol the weath­er and cure can­cer.