Medical council to investigate implicated doctors

Deaths of 3 children at GPHC

The Guyana Medical Council will be investigating the doctors who were involved in the treatment and subsequent death of three children at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
In a brief interview with Guyana Times, Chairman of the medical council, Dr Navin Rambarran said that the organisation has already requested the report and will analyse same before launching its own investigation.
“We have not received the report but we have asked for the report from GPHC and we are expecting that soon…there has to be certain investigation I would believe because on our part we still have to look into the matter,” he explained.
His comments come at a time when parents and other activists have called for the revocation of the medical licences of the doctors who administered the pre-chemotherapy drug without following protocol, which eventually led to the deaths of seven-year-old Curwayne Edwards on January 14; three-year-old Roshini Seegobin on January 18, followed by six-year-old Sharezer Mendonca who died on January 24.
Last week, senior officials from the GPHC revealed that the finding of the probe into the matter concluded that the medical staff had administered the drugs incorrectly whereby instead of intrathecal administration of the drug vincristine, they administered it intravenously. It was this that led to the adverse reactions of the three children and ultimately their deaths.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Karen Gordon-Campbell, who presented the report during a press conference had said that the three medical personnel involved in the matters were aware that they had broken protocol but not at the initial stage of administering the medicinal drugs to those patients.
“The reasons that were given encompassed the fact that they were stretched and maybe not fully attentive at the time. That pretty much is the long and short of the reasons given but I don’t think that initially, they realised. But eventually, when they recognised that the patients were deteriorating when they checked they realised their mistake,” she said.
Meanwhile, Chairperson of the Board of Directors at the GPHC, Kesaundra Alves told the media that an internal investigation by the hospital’s administration into the circumstances surrounding the treatment of three leukaemia patients and their subsequent adverse reactions has revealed that human deficiencies and systemic challenges contributed to the demise of those three children.
She stated that an independent investigation by the Public Health Ministry was also launched and findings were similar to those of the GPHC’s; non-adherence to the hospital’s protocols led to the three young children succumbing at the GPHC.
The still grieving family members of Sharezer Mendonca have revealed that they are taking legal action against the medical institution for wrongful death.