Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A Ste Madeleine cou­ple is blam­ing med­ical neg­li­gence for the death of their ba­by at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Na­talia Ramd­han, 21, and her boyfriend Moses Leo­pole, 27, claim that pethi­dine, an opi­oid pain re­liev­er, which was ad­min­is­tered dur­ing labour caused their ba­by to go in­to car­diac ar­rest, lead­ing to his death. They are de­mand­ing an­swers and ac­count­abil­i­ty from the hos­pi­tal.

“I do be­lieve that the med­ica­tion they gave me caused my ba­by to die. I want jus­tice for my ba­by,” said Ramd­han in an in­ter­view at the cou­ple’s Ste Madeleine home.

They said while the preg­nan­cy was a sur­prise it was “per­fect” with no signs of trou­ble and every­thing was fine when Ramd­han vis­it­ed the health cen­tre just three days be­fore she gave birth.

“In my heart, I was over­joyed be­cause this is some­thing I’ve al­ways want­ed for years now,” said Leo­pole.

On March 21, Ramd­han be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing con­trac­tions. She ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal around 6.36 am and around 9 am, she was giv­en med­ica­tion in­tra­venous­ly, fol­lowed by an­oth­er painkiller around 10.45 am, which she lat­er learnt was pethi­dine.

Ramd­han said she be­gan feel­ing drowsy and was drift­ing in and out of sleep.

"When he (the ba­by) came, he was cry­ing and mov­ing. They cut the cord, put him on my chest, and he was un­re­spon­sive for a mo­ment. The mid­wife shook his back, and he start­ed cry­ing again," Ramd­han re­called.

Ba­by Khazriel was born at 1.18 pm and weighed 2.885 kilo­grammes. He was tak­en away in an in­cu­ba­tor.

Ramd­han was lat­er told by a doc­tor that she lost a litre of blood and had suf­fered a torn cervix, re­quir­ing emer­gency surgery. She was hand­ed a doc­u­ment to sign, though she could not read it due to blurred vi­sion and she was trem­bling.

Mean­while, Leo­pole and Ramd­han's moth­er Natasha Khan, who was seat­ed near the de­liv­ery room, said they were not giv­en any in­for­ma­tion about the ba­by un­til hours lat­er. Leo­pole said he was on­ly in­formed that his son had gone in­to car­diac ar­rest and had to be re­sus­ci­tat­ed when he got to the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit around 4 pm.

Ad­mit­ting that it was very emo­tion­al see­ing his ba­by hooked up to ma­chines and in dis­tress, he said, "When I reached to the in­cu­ba­tor like he felt my pres­ence and opened his eyes I told him yes son dad­dy's here. I tried to con­sole him. Not long af­ter he got home, his worst fears were re­alised when a doc­tor called around 8:30 pm to ask him to re­turn to the hos­pi­tal be­cause his son had suf­fered an­oth­er car­diac ar­rest, and they re­sus­ci­tate him.

Re­call­ing the fi­nal mo­ments with his at NICU, he said, "I know he was a fight­er from birth be­cause I am a fight­er, so I was try­ing to con­sole him and telling him fight son fight, dad­dy is here, breath son breath with tears in my eyes."

Even­tu­al­ly, Ramd­han joined him.

The par­ents said a pro­vi­sion­al death cer­tifi­cate list­ed his death as acute res­pi­ra­to­ry fail­ure, pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"All I want is jus­tice for my ba­by and for them to give me the right rea­sons for what caused my son to die,” lament­ed Leo­pole.

Mean­while, Ramd­han's moth­er slammed the hos­pi­tal staff for the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and care shown to her them.

"Up to now af­ter she did her surgery, no one has spo­ken to us. Up to now, I have no an­swers on what took place with my healthy grand­son who had ab­solute­ly no com­pli­ca­tions. It was a per­fect preg­nan­cy," charged Khan.

Dur­ing the au­top­sy, she said sam­ples were tak­en for fur­ther test­ing, so they have not yet com­plet­ed the pa­per­work for his fu­ner­al.

Com­plain­ing that they were told that it would take two months to get her daugh­ter's med­ical files from the hos­pi­tal, she said even they have to ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion, they would not rest un­til they get an­swers and jus­tice for her grand­son's death.

In re­sponse, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) dis­put­ed the fam­i­ly's claims of neg­li­gence. "Dur­ing our val­ued client's stay on the Labour Ward, the au­thor­i­ty’s med­ical team pro­vid­ed the req­ui­site and best lev­el of care to sup­port the moth­er’s health along with the safe de­liv­ery of the in­fant."

The au­thor­i­ty added that the find­ings of the au­top­sy con­duct­ed on March 24, un­earthed find­ings that ap­peared to be un­re­lat­ed to the med­ical care ad­min­is­tered to the in­fant and moth­er. How­ev­er, it stat­ed that a fur­ther re­view of the cir­cum­stances is cur­rent­ly un­der­way and the SWRHA has coun­selled the fam­i­ly on the cause of the in­fant’s death and will pro­vide nec­es­sary care and sup­port.