Mother blames public health sector for death of 5-year-old son

A Berbice mother is blaming the public health sector for the death of her five-year-old son, who took his last breath on Monday after suffering from an undiagnosed illness.
Reports are that the toddler died at the New Amsterdam Hospital hours after he was transferred there from the Skeldon Hospital.
Davitry Seepaul, called ‘Renita,’ of Number 47 Village Corentyne, told this publication that her son, Marlon Chappelle, who celebrated his fifth birthday last Tuesday, fell ill moments after his graduation two Fridays ago, and was taken to the Skeldon Hospital for treatment.
There, Seepaul said, he was given an injection and some medication; but she was forced to take her son back to the Skeldon Hospital on Saturday evening, after he continued to have a high fever and complained of feeling unwell.
“Last week Sunday, when we go back to the hospital, they gave him two injections, saline, oxygen, and they had him throughout the night, till around 2 O’clock in the morning,” she explained.
He was subsequently transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital, and after being medically examined there, arrangements were made to transfer him to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
At the time, she said, he was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and she gave the go-ahead for the transfer to take place.
“At the New Amsterdam Hospital, they told me that the baby have to go to Georgetown, and asked me if I would sign up for him to go. I said, ‘Yes’, because I am the mother and I will do anything to make him feel better. I asked them if anybody else could go with me, and they said, ‘No, only the mother’. I was ready to go, and waited until night, and then realised that they weren’t going anymore…. My cousin’s wife was with me, and they called her inside, when she come out back, I asked her what happened, and she just kept staring at me”, the distraught woman explained.
It was after then that the woman was told her son was dead. The doctors at the medical facility told her that her son had died at home, and that they were not going ahead with the post-mortem. The frustrated mother appeals for answers, and more so, wants to know what illness her son had.
“That is what she trying to tell me, that baby dead at home. If baby die at home, how baby get oxygen, saline, and take the injection and get transferred from Skeldon with the ambulance?” she questioned.
Director of Regional Health Services, Jevaughn Stephens, when contacted, related that the mother had made a report to the Police, accusing the hospital for her son’s death. In light of this development, he explained, the pathologist cannot perform the autopsy. He added that since the matter is now in the hands of the Police, only an authorised pathologist can perform the post-mortem examination.

Arrangements are being made to have the autopsy done on Wednesday.