Diamond Hospital under investigation after dog escapes with dead body

… guilty party will be heavily sanctioned – Norton

Consequent to the discovery of the remains of a foetus just outside the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, East Bank Demerara, an investigation has been launched by the Public Health Ministry to ascertain who was responsible for the careless disposal.

This is according to Public Health Minister Dr George Norton who revealed that either the doctor or nurses who delivered the baby are suspected to be responsible for the poorly disposed foetus.

The foetus which was dragged out of the Hospital Dump and dismembered by a stray dog was discovered on Tuesday, and a photo of the remains went viral on social media.

According to Dr Norton, officials are unsure of what transpired between the time the foetus died, and it was found in the compound.

“The Chief Medical Officer is saying that he came in the country on Monday and the director of the Hospital called him and asked ‘what do we do with the foetus?’. He said he advised him to contact the Georgetown Public Hospital. The Georgetown CMO said to send the foetus to the hospital and we’ll pay the bill. Between then and when it appeared in the Garbage heap, we don’t know what happened. That baby died since Sunday,” Dr Norton revealed.

Norton pointed out that the foetus had not reached the developmental stage to be considered a baby. He explained that according to investigations thus far, the 26-year-old woman who delivered the 23-week-old foetus, which would have been her fifth child, wanted nothing to do with its disposal and left it as the Hospital’s responsibility.

He stated that in scenarios like this, the foetus should have been placed in the correct colour-coded disposal bin and transported to the disposal facility, however this procedure was not adhered to: “Somebody, whether it is the doctor or nurse put the baby in the waste bucket, and then somebody who takes the garbage to the dump outside, left it there with the baby. It has to be either the doctor or the nurse, both are denying but we will get that while we are doing the investigation.”

He stated that the guilty party would be heavily sanctioned.

Guyana Times had reported that a stray dog had brusquely dragged the body of an already dead premature baby out into the compound of the public hospital and dismembered it, making a meal of the dead infant.