An in­de­pen­dent com­mit­tee has start­ed in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances un­der which six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois died, while rel­a­tives have resched­uled the sec­ond au­top­sy ini­tial­ly set for yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the child’s fa­ther, Aaron Fran­cois, con­firmed he had agreed to post­pone the sec­ond au­top­sy at Guides Fu­ner­al Home in San Fer­nan­do, say­ing it will now take place to­day.

He said the fu­ner­al home had been booked up yes­ter­day.

Fran­cois re­vealed that Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe had spo­ken to him at length, promis­ing a full, ur­gent and fair in­ves­ti­ga­tion as well as oth­er sup­port. Fran­cois not­ed that the com­mit­tee set up by Dr Bo­doe did not in­clude per­son­nel from the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal or the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

He said his rel­a­tives from abroad will be fly­ing in this week, and his son’s fu­ner­al is be­ing or­gan­ised for Au­gust 16.

Say­ing that he was thank­ful for the con­cern of the min­is­ter, Fran­cois added, “I know they have a coun­try to run and they are busy, yet the min­is­ter made the time to call me, and for that I am grate­ful be­cause af­ter speak­ing to him, I felt bet­ter,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the in­ter­est shown by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in or­der­ing an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent, as in­ter­nal re­views alone were not enough to ­un­cov­er the full truth.

Jash­er’s fam­i­ly has re­ject­ed the re­sults of an au­top­sy done at the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary, where the cause of death was list­ed as as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis, like­ly trig­gered by vi­ral pneu­mo­nia.

As­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis is a se­ri­ous lung con­di­tion caused by the in­hala­tion of for­eign sub­stances like vom­it or sali­va, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pa­tients whose res­pi­ra­to­ry de­fences are weak­ened by in­fec­tion. It can lead to in­flam­ma­tion, pneu­mo­nia and, in se­vere cas­es, death.

The fam­i­ly has been ad­vised to pur­sue le­gal op­tions on the ba­sis that the drug called mag­ne­sium sul­phate was ad­min­is­tered de­spite Yash­er fac­ing an ad­verse re­ac­tion.

Mag­ne­sium sul­phate is a min­er­al com­pound of­ten used med­ical­ly to treat con­di­tions like eclamp­sia, se­vere asth­ma at­tacks, and cer­tain types of seizures; how­ev­er, it is not typ­i­cal­ly ad­min­is­tered for pneu­mo­nia.

The fam­i­ly said he had been ad­mit­ted for a dry cough and was nev­er crit­i­cal un­til the drug was giv­en in­tra­venous­ly.