RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a heart-wrench­ing turn of events that has left a com­mu­ni­ty shat­tered and a fam­i­ly in mourn­ing, lit­tle Ra­ni­ah Lewis’ life was trag­i­cal­ly cut short, leav­ing be­hind a trail of unan­swered ques­tions and in­con­solable grief.

Doc­tors at the Siparia Health Fa­cil­i­ty could not save the pre­cious life of ba­by Ra­ni­ah af­ter she swal­lowed a chen­nette seed and died around 4.25 pm on Thurs­day.

At the time of the in­ci­dent, Ra­ni­ah’s moth­er, Ro­let­ta Lewis, 35, and her fa­ther, Ake­ba Sci­pio, 36, were not at home.

Lewis had em­barked on a fish­ing trip with her sis­ter, Kim­ber­ley La­fond, to Quinam Beach in Pe­nal, while Sci­pio had ven­tured to High Street, Siparia, to pur­chase ba­by di­a­pers for his daugh­ter.

Ba­by Ra­ni­ah had been left in the care of her aunt, Aman­da Ra­mad­har, 33, along­side eight oth­er cousins, all of them un­der the age of ten.

The chil­dren live with their rel­a­tives in a clus­ter of mod­est ply­wood and gal­va­nized hous­es nes­tled be­neath the pro­tec­tive shade of teak trees on a qui­et track off Gam­bal Trace, Siparia. The site, how­ev­er, is just a few min­utes away from the Siparia Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ra­ni­ah’s un­cle, Keron Sci­pio, a PH dri­ver, ad­mit­ted to buy­ing the ch­enette. He said this de­ci­sion will for­ev­er haunt his con­science.

Adamant­ly in­sist­ing that he nev­er gave the ba­by girl chen­nette, a solemn Sci­pio fell to the ground weep­ing when Guardian me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, say­ing he had stored the ch­enette away from the chil­dren on a shelf.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the fam­i­ly, one of lit­tle Ra­ni­ah’s cousins, aged six, climbed up on a wash­ing ma­chine and got a hold of a bunch of chen­nette, which he then shared among all the cousins, in­clud­ing the ba­by girl.

Sci­pio said while he was heat­ing a meal, ba­by Ra­ni­ah, strug­gling for breath, walked up to him with her two young cousins.

“They told me she was chok­ing,” he re­called.

Keron said he at­tempt­ed to dis­lodge the ch­enette by tap­ping her on the back, turn­ing her over, and even at­tempt­ing chest com­pres­sions but noth­ing worked.

“Then I put her in the car and drove to the hos­pi­tal. I thought she would be in good care. The doc­tors tried their best but they couldn’t save her,” Sci­pio re­called.

In a heavy whis­per, Sci­pio added: “It hap­pened in a few min­utes. I blame my­self. No­body knows how I am feel­ing be­cause it’s me who bought the chen­nette.”

His com­mon-law wife, Aman­da, shat­tered by the weight of an un­speak­able tragedy, wept un­con­trol­lably, un­able to find so­lace in the midst of such pro­found loss.

“I can­not speak about it. I don’t know what to do. I wish this was a dream,” Aman­da said.

Next door, ba­by Ra­ni­ah’s moth­er, Ro­let­ta, was al­so in­con­solable.

Smok­ing a cig­a­rette, Lewis said: “That was my an­gel. Every morn­ing she would wake up singing. I had left her with her fa­ther for two weeks. He was in charge of her.” Lewis has four oth­er chil­dren, aged 17, 14, 10 and six.

Her sis­ter La­fond blamed the hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties for the ba­by’s demise, say­ing the doc­tors did not have the equip­ment to re­sus­ci­tate the ba­by.

“Imag­ine a lit­tle tube to push down in the child to give her some oxy­gen

An au­top­sy is sched­uled on the ba­by’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. Siparia po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

SWRHA re­sponds

In a state­ment on the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly but de­nied that there was an ab­sence of equip­ment at the Siparia Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, where they took young Ra­ni­ah.

“At all ma­te­r­i­al times, the ap­pro­pri­ate med­ical equip­ment was ful­ly func­tion­al and in ex­cel­lent work­ing con­di­tion. Any al­ter­na­tive as­ser­tion which sug­gests a lack of equip­ment or med­ical obliv­ion was a con­tribut­ing fac­tor, is in­ac­cu­rate,” the SWRHA said.

The Au­thor­i­ty not­ed that of­fi­cials will con­tin­ue to be in con­tact with the fam­i­ly to ap­praise them on the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances of the mat­ter.

Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty con­cerned

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty has re­it­er­at­ed its call for par­ents and guardians to keep watch over their chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly in the fi­nal weeks of school va­ca­tion. Em­pha­sis­ing the para­mount im­por­tance of pri­ori­tis­ing child safe­ty above all else, the au­thor­i­ty said all chil­dren must be su­per­vised by a trust­ed adult as they en­joy leisure and play­time dur­ing the school hol­i­days.

The au­thor­i­ty said in­ad­e­quate su­per­vi­sion can leave chil­dren vul­ner­a­ble to ac­ci­dents, harm, and abuse.

It not­ed that haz­ardous sub­stances, sharp ob­jects and po­ten­tial in­jury-in­duc­ing items should al­so be kept out of a child’s reach to pre­vent ac­ci­dents. The au­thor­i­ty al­so em­pha­sized the need to ex­er­cise cau­tion near bod­ies of wa­ter such as beach­es, rivers, and pools. Chil­dren should on­ly be near or in wa­ter when su­per­vised by an adult, the au­thor­i­ty cau­tioned.

If a child is spend­ing time away from home, the au­thor­i­ty said par­ents/guardians should en­quire about sleep­ing arrange­ments and know who is re­spon­si­ble for su­per­vis­ing their child if they are not there. The au­thor­i­ty al­so dis­cour­aged phys­i­cal forms of dis­ci­pline.

It en­cour­aged par­ents and guardians to seek fur­ther guid­ance from their Face­book page or to con­tact the Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion un­der the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices at 623-2608, ex­ten­sion 6701 to 6711. Any sus­pi­cions or in­ci­dents of abuse to the Po­lice at 999 or to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty at 996.