SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH), which falls un­der the purview of the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA), has been is­sued with an­oth­er pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, fol­low­ing the death of a new­born ba­by girl of “pre­sumed sep­sis” two months ago.

It’s the 20th let­ter the PoS­GH has re­ceived over the last few weeks from Free­dom Law Cham­bers, head­ed by at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan, which is deal­ing with ba­by deaths at the in­sti­tu­tion on be­half of clients.

The San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal was al­so is­sued two let­ters, while one was sent to the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal. In all, 23 let­ters have been dis­patched to three pub­lic hos­pi­tals by the firm in con­nec­tion with deaths that the par­ents be­lieve may have been the re­sult of neg­li­gence.

In the lat­est let­ter, dat­ed April 27, El­isha Fe­lix claims she lost her ba­by, Azari­ah Rod­ney, on Feb­ru­ary 19 be­cause of neg­li­gence at the PoS­GH NICU.

The let­ter stat­ed that Fe­lix, 29, and her com­mon-law hus­band Stephen Rod­ney, 34, were look­ing for­ward to be­com­ing par­ents but that their jour­ney to par­ent­hood took a dev­as­tat­ing turn when they were con­front­ed with the heart­break­ing re­al­i­ty of their ba­by’s trag­ic pass­ing. Azari­ah was the cou­ple’s first child in their two-year union.

On Feb­ru­ary 4, Fe­lix, a mar­ket ven­dor, was trans­ferred from the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal to the PoS­GH for a C-sec­tion. Azari­ah was born at 30 weeks and trans­ferred to NICU for ob­ser­va­tion.

The first time Fe­lix set eyes on her ba­by was Feb­ru­ary 7, caus­ing her heart to over­flow with joy, the let­ter said.

The par­ents were lat­er told that the ba­by had jaun­dice and an in­fec­tion and an­tibi­otics were be­ing ad­min­is­tered.

De­spite their con­cerns, the cou­ple was re­as­sured that these com­pli­ca­tions were com­mon among pre­ma­ture ba­bies. The jaun­dice and in­fec­tion even­tu­al­ly sub­sided, which brought re­lief to the par­ents.

The doc­tors al­so dis­con­tin­ued the an­tibi­otics and Azari­ah was weaned off the ven­ti­la­tor as she be­gan breath­ing on her own, and even showed signs of progress by start­ing to con­sume a small amount of breast milk, the let­ter said.

How­ev­er, things took a dra­mat­ic turn, as Rod­ney no­ticed tubes con­nect­ed to his ba­by and en­quired about it. Rod­ney was told the ba­by was placed on stronger an­tibi­otics, which con­fused him, the let­ter not­ed.

Know­ing that his daugh­ter was just tak­en off of the an­tibi­otics, Rod­ney en­quired from an­oth­er nurse who was dis­mis­sive, telling him, “Yuh child pre­ma­ture! Ent we tell yuh dis nor­mal?”

On Feb­ru­ary 18, the par­ents re­ceived a dis­tress­ing call from the NICU ur­gent­ly re­quest­ing their pres­ence.

When they ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal, they saw a few doc­tors around their ba­by, whose body was swollen.

The ba­by’s hands and feet were blue and pur­ple and she had been con­nect­ed to nu­mer­ous tubes and med­ical equip­ment, the let­ter said.

In­stant­ly, the cou­ple went in­to a state of pan­ic and shock.

“They thought to them­selves that this could not be the same ba­by they saw just the day be­fore who was ac­tive and smil­ing and mov­ing around,” the let­ter stat­ed.

As they sought an­swers, the par­ents were ush­ered in­to an­oth­er room while the med­ical team con­duct­ed an as­sess­ment. Min­utes lat­er, they were in­formed that Azari­ah was not re­spond­ing as ex­pect­ed and they need­ed to reini­ti­ate ven­ti­la­tion and con­duct fur­ther tests.

Lat­er that evening, health­care work­ers re­quest­ed blood sam­ples from Fe­lix for com­pat­i­bil­i­ty test­ing, prepar­ing for blood trans­fu­sions if need­ed.

De­spite the cou­ple’s count­less en­quiries, no mem­ber of the med­ical staff told them about any of the tests be­ing con­duct­ed or pro­vid­ed up­dates on Azari­ah’s con­di­tion.

Yet, the par­ents clung on­to hope, pray­ing for a mir­a­cle.

The cou­ple was al­lowed to see the ba­by and be­fore leav­ing the hos­pi­tal, one of the nurs­es of­fered re­as­sur­ance that they would re­ceive reg­u­lar up­dates.

On Feb­ru­ary 19th, the cou­ple re­ceived an ur­gent call from the NICU in­struct­ing them to come in im­me­di­ate­ly, where they were met with the sight of their ba­by in an even worse con­di­tion.

The doc­tor de­liv­ered the news that ba­by Azari­ah had de­vel­oped Dis­sem­i­nat­ed In­travas­cu­lar Co­ag­u­lopa­thy (DIC). How­ev­er, the par­ents were re­as­sured by the doc­tor that this was nor­mal in pre­ma­ture ba­bies. Hours, leter ba­by Azari­ah died.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the let­ter stat­ed that Azari­ah’s death cer­tifi­cate list­ed “pre­sumed sep­sis” as the cause of death.

“While ini­tial­ly, the cou­ple did not ques­tion this dis­crep­an­cy in Azari­ah’s cause of death, their per­spec­tive has since shift­ed up­on learn­ing about sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions faced by oth­er par­ents in re­cent times. They now won­der if the same bac­te­ria present in the NICU at the time of the clus­ter of ba­bies’ deaths in April had been present all along, and if the med­ical staff were sim­ply con­ceal­ing it from them all that time,’’ the let­ter stat­ed.