Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing the re­sults of a sec­ond au­top­sy on six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois, which sug­gest­ed that an ad­verse re­ac­tion to in­tra­venous­ly ad­min­is­tered med­ica­tion caused his death, the Min­istry of Health has ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

Last Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his death at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal, fol­low­ing an emo­tion­al Face­book Live by Jash­er’s par­ents, Aaron, 34, and Yh­nique Fran­cois, 32, seek­ing jus­tice.

A Min­istry of Health press re­lease yes­ter­day stat­ed that the four-mem­ber in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee has been giv­en an Au­gust 20 dead­line to sub­mit their re­port. The re­lease said the com­mit­tee com­pris­es ex­perts in the ar­eas of pae­di­atrics, pae­di­atric in­ten­sive care, nurs­ing, qual­i­ty as­sur­ance and law.

“Their man­date is to re­view the case and de­ter­mine whether the prop­er stan­dard of care, clin­i­cal judge­ment and pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were up­held,” the re­lease added.

Mean­while, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty in­di­cat­ed that the case re­view is in the process of be­ing fi­nalised.

Jash­er’s par­ents on Fri­day re­ject­ed the re­sults of an ini­tial au­top­sy at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which list­ed his death as as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis like­ly due to vi­ral pneu­mo­nia.

How­ev­er, the par­ents said they felt vin­di­cat­ed by the re­sults of a sec­ond au­top­sy per­formed by Pro­fes­sor Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley at JE Guide Fu­ner­al Home and Cre­ma­to­ri­um on Sun­day, which con­tra­dict­ed the ini­tial find­ings.

Dais­ley’s au­top­sy find­ings al­so in­clud­ed as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis. How­ev­er, he found a swollen brain, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and kid­ney com­pli­ca­tions as oth­er pos­si­ble caus­es of Jash­er’s death. He said Jash­er most like­ly suf­fered a car­dio­vas­cu­lar event which pro­duced car­dio­genic shock, acute kid­ney in­jury, and a marked­ly oede­ma­tous brain/hy­pox­ic-is­chemic brain in­jury.

Dais­ley said Jash­er “vom­it­ed dur­ing this event, as­pi­rat­ed, and died.”

“Most like­ly, Jash­er Fran­cois suf­fered this ad­verse event dur­ing the in­tra­venous ad­min­is­tra­tion of med­ica­tion,” Dais­ley con­clud­ed.

The doc­tor stat­ed that the fi­nal re­port will be is­sued up­on his­to­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of tis­sues tak­en dur­ing au­top­sy and tox­i­col­o­gy tests.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Jash­er’s fa­ther said he would not be mak­ing any fur­ther state­ments to the me­dia, as they were now con­cen­trat­ing on his son’s fu­ner­al, sched­uled for Sat­ur­day.

Jash­er’s par­ents have in­sist­ed that Jash­er was healthy apart from a per­sis­tent cough be­fore he went to the hos­pi­tal. He was ad­mit­ted to the Pae­di­atric Ward af­ter mid­night last Thurs­day and di­ag­nosed with a chest in­fec­tion.

In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view, they said his oxy­gen lev­el was in the 90s, prompt­ing doc­tors to mon­i­tor, ad­min­is­ter oxy­gen and pro­vide neb­u­liz­er treat­ments.

“There was no alarm, no anx­i­ety, or any­thing that said your child is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and he may die. There was noth­ing like that,” Jash­er’s moth­er re­called tear­ful­ly. She said she was giv­en the im­pres­sion that she would be tak­ing her son home lat­er that day.

Jash­er’s moth­er left him that morn­ing to go home to pre­pare a meal for him. When her hus­band ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal some­time af­ter 7 am, he said Jash­er was “nor­mal.” He was on the neb­u­liz­er and an IV was at­tached to his hand. But short­ly af­ter a nurse in­ject­ed med­ica­tion, which he was told was Mag­ne­sium Sul­phate, through the IV, Jash­er be­gan re­act­ing ad­verse­ly. He said Jash­er com­plained, “Da, da, my hand burn­ing,” and start­ed cry­ing fran­ti­cal­ly. He al­so vom­it­ed. The re­ac­tion was ini­tial­ly dis­missed by the nurse, who in­di­cat­ed that she was ad­vised Jash­er’s re­ac­tion to the med­ica­tion was nor­mal.

Jash­er again be­gan com­plain­ing, vom­it­ed three times, begged to go home, and then “fell asleep.” Short­ly af­ter­ward, an­oth­er nurse ad­vised him to ad­just Jash­er to an up­right po­si­tion on the bed. He said this was when they re­alised he was un­re­spon­sive, but at­tempts to re­sus­ci­tate him were fu­tile.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Jash­er’s school—St Paul’s Boys’ An­gli­can—have of­fered con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly. Jash­er would have been en­ter­ing Sec­ond Year in the new school term.

The min­istry’s re­lease stat­ed, “Jash­er was a bright and spir­it­ed young boy who brought joy and en­er­gy to his school com­mu­ni­ty. Al­ways kind-heart­ed and pos­i­tive, he had a gen­tle way of mak­ing oth­ers feel wel­come and ac­cept­ed. His cheer­ful pres­ence in the class­room, ea­ger­ness to par­tic­i­pate in school ac­tiv­i­ties, and ever-ready smile made him a joy to teach and to be around.” The re­lease added that he will be deeply missed by his class­mates, teach­ers and all mem­bers of the St Paul’s com­mu­ni­ty, but added that his mem­o­ry will for­ev­er live on in their hearts.

The min­istry said the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion was on stand­by to pro­vide grief coun­selling and emo­tion­al sup­port to his fam­i­ly, stu­dents, and teach­ers. The school, via a Face­book post, stat­ed, “We can on­ly imag­ine how painful this is to you. We pray that Almighty God will com­fort and strength­en you with His Holy Spir­it dur­ing this time of be­reave­ment. Our prayers are with his par­ents, his broth­er, and the rest of the fam­i­ly.”

Jash­er, ac­cord­ing to their post, was a very pleas­ant, friend­ly, and out­spo­ken child and will be missed by his friends and the staff of the In­fant De­part­ment.