Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of a nine-year-old boy, who died less than three hours af­ter be­ing dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, is claim­ing neg­li­gence by med­ical per­son­nel.

“He did not get to wear his new sneak­ers to go to school. He did not get to see his new friends in Stan­dard Two. He would not get to see a Christ­mas. He would not get to see my birth­day. He would not get to see any­thing be­cause he is dead,” said Shanel Paul dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) said that based on their pre­lim­i­nary find­ings, it was sat­is­fied that all stan­dard pro­to­cols were ad­hered to.

Jace, a pupil of San Fer­nan­do Boys’ Gov­ern­ment, was dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal around 1 pm on Wednes­day af­ter he had been ward­ed for 14 days, and treat­ed for bron­chi­tis and a chest in­fec­tion.

An ini­tial po­lice re­port stat­ed that around 2.15 pm he be­gan vom­it­ing blood while at his home at Ol­era Heights, San Fer­nan­do, and with­in an hour he passed away. When the po­lice ar­rived at his home, he was ly­ing in blood, with blood around his nose and mouth. There were no marks of vi­o­lence on his body.

“I was not ex­pect­ing my child to be a dead child yes­ter­day. I ex­pect­ed that he would have come home, and he would have been good, but he was not good at all,” Paul said.

Jace suf­fered from Type 1 Di­a­betes. He was her on­ly child. She re­called that with­in the last month, he was ward­ed twice at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and once at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. She be­lieves that her son’s ail­ment was not prop­er­ly di­ag­nosed.

She claimed he was di­ag­nosed with bron­chi­tis, a chest in­fec­tion and pneu­mo­nia and treat­ed with mul­ti­ple med­ica­tions, in­clud­ing sev­er­al an­tibi­otics. She said on Ju­ly 1, she took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter he com­plained about chest pains.

She said they be­gan treat­ing him with an­tibi­otics and oth­er med­ica­tion. How­ev­er, the moth­er said she was not sat­is­fied with the treat­ment he was re­ceiv­ing, so she dis­charged him, and took him to Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ence Com­plex where he was ward­ed from Ju­ly 9 to Ju­ly 14.

Days af­ter his dis­charge, she said he be­gan vom­it­ing blood, and she rushed him to the San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tal.

“They put him in re­cess as nor­mal. He was in pain, then af­ter two to three hours they trans­ferred him up­stairs. She said they put him on more an­tibi­otics and oth­er med­ica­tion.

“One minute was a tear in his throat, and the next minute was his stom­ach that was caus­ing the bleed­ing, so they did not know what was go­ing on.”

She added, “When he keep bring­ing up the blood in the cup. I keep show­ing them the piles that he bring up.”

Paul claimed they were on­ly pump­ing him with med­ica­tion.

“All they did was take an X-ray, no ul­tra­sound, no ECG, no blood trans­fu­sion, noth­ing,” she claimed.

She re­called that when he was dis­charged on Wednes­day, he was in “se­mi good” con­di­tion. She said not long af­ter they got home, he start­ed vom­it­ing blood.

“He just start­ed to bring up blood through his nose and his mouth. I rushed him to the sink in the bath­room, and that was it. He brought up his stom­ach lin­ing every­thing lit­er­al­ly came out,” she said.

In a brief state­ment, SWRHA said a pre­lim­i­nary re­port was gen­er­at­ed yes­ter­day, and a fur­ther case re­view is un­der­way by their Qual­i­ty Im­prove­ment De­part­ment.

“How­ev­er, based on de­tails ob­tained thus far, the SWRHA is sat­is­fied that all stan­dard pro­to­cols were ad­hered to,” stat­ed SWRHA. The au­thor­i­ty ex­pressed its deep con­do­lences and com­mis­er­at­ed with the rel­a­tives.