Rishard Khan

Re­porter

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Fri­day’s High Court rul­ing that the Min­istry of Health breached its du­ties and award­ed com­pen­sa­tion to a six-year-old boy of Ch­agua­nas with birth de­fects as­so­ci­at­ed with the Zi­ka virus is be­ing hailed as a vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, the child’s moth­er, Kavi­ta Ramkissoon-Ra­goo, isn’t claim­ing any suc­cess as yet.

Com­ment­ing on the rul­ing, for­mer Chief of Staff of the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal, pres­i­dent of the Zi­ka Foun­da­tion, and the court’s sole ap­point­ed ex­pert in the case, Dr Karen So­han, told Guardian Me­dia the rul­ing is a vic­to­ry for all the ba­bies born with com­pli­ca­tions from Zi­ka in T&T.

“These chil­dren are now six to sev­en years old and many of them can’t walk, or talk, they have im­pair­ment of their hear­ing and vi­sion. This will pro­vide them with op­por­tu­ni­ties that give them a good qual­i­ty of life. It’s al­so sup­port for the par­ents,” she said.

“As you can imag­ine, a fam­i­ly who has a chal­lenged child—it’s a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and I think many of our fam­i­lies felt aban­doned by the au­thor­i­ties and it’s time we come to­geth­er and do good things for these chil­dren. I don’t think any­body in this coun­try is go­ing to mind if the state us­es its re­sources to help look af­ter these chil­dren.”

How­ev­er, Ramkisson-Ra­goo will on­ly de­clare her ef­forts a suc­cess af­ter mea­sures are in­sti­tut­ed to pro­vide her son and oth­ers like him with the spe­cialised treat­ment they need.

“It’s not a sim­ple re­ward that’s one and done. Our Zi­ka ba­bies and, by ex­ten­sion, the cere­bral pal­sy kids have a life-long con­di­tion that is in­cur­able. They re­quire many in­ter­ven­tions, med­ica­tion, spe­cial aid and stuff like that. That is re­al­ly my main con­cern in stand­ing up for all of these peo­ple,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

“The great­est vic­to­ry for me is to see what the Gov­ern­ment does now for these chil­dren. I want to see equip­ment, I want to see the trained ther­a­pists—things that the chil­dren need. That I think would be even hap­pi­er for me.”

She said the tim­ing of the news could not have been bet­ter for her fam­i­ly as, on the very same day of the rul­ing, they were turned down by an in­sur­ance com­pa­ny for fund­ing to take her son abroad for treat­ment.

Ramkisson-Ra­goo’s son, Davyn, was born in Feb­ru­ary 2017 and di­ag­nosed with Mi­cro­cephaly Zi­ka Syn­drome due to the Zi­ka virus.

Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment on the mat­ter from Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who is cur­rent­ly in Gene­va, Switzer­land for the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (WHO) 76th World Health As­sem­bly.

How­ev­er, he de­clined to speak on the mat­ter un­til he re­turned to T&T and had time to read the judg­ment and speak with the le­gal team.