The parents of a five-month-old baby boy who succumbed recently while receiving treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) are still at a loss as to how their child died.

According to the family, the baby, Kumar Singh also known as Videsh, was suffering from diarrhea when he was admitted to the city hospital last Tuesday.

Photo of baby Videsh who died at the GPHC

However, the parents claim they were prevented from accessing their child while he was receiving treatment. Some 17 hours later they were allowed by staff at the GPHC to visit their child but little did they know that their son had died.

Shivanie Persaud of Strathspey, East Coast Demerara (ECD) told INews today that on Tuesday evening she noticed her son excreting a number of times and she, along with her husband, rushed the baby to the hospital.

This was around 20:00hrs on Tuesday and it was not some hours later that a doctor spoke with her about her baby’s condition and she was put in the waiting area with her sick child. Midnight came and baby Videsh still was not able to obtain the treatment he needed, Shivanie recalled.

According to the grieving woman, her son received saline around 08:00hrs on Wednesday morning but it was not “dripping”.

“They didn’t treat my baby until like 8am and when the baby get hooked up for saline it was not dripping and I told them but they didn’t listen. Then finally, around 10am, they fixed the line but the nurse said I was disgusting calling for them all the time. Anyhow, they bore baby in his flesh, not his vein, and it still wasn’t dripping ,” the young mother stated.

She recalled that sometime around noon on Wednesday she went to the ward where her baby had been placed and was prevented from seeing her child. Shivanie related that she wanted to know the status of her sick baby but that hospital personnel refused to let her stay in the same room as her son while he was being treated.

“They pull me out the ward by my waist then later they telling me how my baby hand slipped out and they have to give the baby an x-ray but I didn’t bring my child to the hospital with any sick, except diarrhea. Time passed and no x-ray was done and after some back-and-forth they put a tube in my baby’s nose to feed him…that’s what they said…. but by then I was asking for self-discharge to take my baby to a private hospital because he wasn’t getting the attention he deserved and they refused to give me my baby to go saying how it wasn’t fair to the doctors there…,” she said.

According to the distraught mother it was around 14:15hrs  that a doctor arranged for her child to receive “salt and sugar water” due to the baby being dehydrated.

At this point, Shivanie recalled that she, her husband and her mother were trying to see what was happening with the baby but again were prevented from doing so.

“They put us out the room again and until minutes to five (5 pm) then they tell us we can see baby but by the time we reach baby he was already dead. My baby’s hand was swollen and his stomach was swollen too and they said they couldn’t find vein for him and bore him all over even on top his head. If they had treated my child sooner he would have lived, if they let me take him to private (hospital) he would have lived, and they were saying they didn’t have life support machine to put my baby on because only one they have and a baby was already on it,” she added.

Meanwhile, Public Health Minister Dr George Norton told INews, when contacted for a comment today, that at present he is out of town and as soon as he gets back to his office he expects a detailed report from the relevant authorities as to what led to the baby’s death.

“Our aim is to introduce infant mortality and we would do everything to try to save a child’s life. I want the report on my desk by the time I get back and if the hospital staff is lacking or their actions resulted in this baby’s death then they will be dealt with accordingly. Our job is to save lives,” Minister Norton declared. (Kristen Macklingam)