Wilfred Sandy is accusing doctors in the paediatric unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) of exposing his newborn son to a virus, resulting in his death, while adding that the authorities are now attempting to cover up the incident.
In an interview with Guyana Times, the Rose Hall, Berbice businessman said his fiancé went into labour on March 2 and was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where she was kept for three days before delivering a baby boy, Maleek Sandy, on March 5.
He said after the first time mother delivered, she observed her newborn vomiting a green substance.
The woman, who is also a doctor, related the incident to her doctors, who then admitted the baby to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and immediately conducted a series of tests. They found that the baby was suffering from duodenal atresia (intestinal obstruction) and would require surgery to clear the blockage in his intestines.
He was transferred to the GPHC where he was examined and admitted to the NICU. However, the businessman related that the doctors that examined the baby said they did not see a blockage in his small intestine and started him on antibiotics since they believed it to be an infection. Maleek would spend the next three days hooked up to several tubes as his condition continuously worsened.
“They (doctors) came back on the fourth day and told us they think it’s some sort
Wilfred Sandy, the newborn’s father
of infection… they did another X-ray and it showed a partial blockage and they said it is surgical and as all of this was happening they telling us that he is responding well to the antibiotics and so,” Sandy explained.
He further related that one of the doctors on the surgical team met with them and informed them that they would have to sign off on the surgery, which was expected to be performed by the hospital’s paediatric surgeon (name withheld) and was scheduled for March 10. However, when surgery day came the doctors were still performing tests on Maleek and found that his platelet count was low, and cancelled the surgery.
The following day, the distraught man related, one of the doctors told the parents that the National Blood Transfusion Service, more commonly called the Blood Bank, does not issue platelets on a Sunday and that they could not perform the surgery then, an explanation he said he found strange.
Sandy told Guyana Times that he consulted with a private hospital to discuss the possibility of moving his son there to have the surgery performed but was informed that the same doctor at the GPHC would be the one performing the surgery at the private institution and that it was unwise to transfer the baby in his current state. He said since Maleek was admitted to the NICU, he has been requesting to meet with the surgeon, but she never agreed to meet with them.
The grieving man noted that on March 11 he got a number for a senior doctor and made contact with him after he noticed his son’s condition deteriorating rapidly.
“When I talk to the doctor he asked if I didn’t see the head doctor and I said no and I told him about the baby condition and he said something is not right and he called the hospital. After that, six to eight doctors came up and they told us the baby having respiratory distress and that they will have to put a tube down his throat because he is not getting oxygen,” he related.
However, the doctors could not find any respiratory tubes in the NICU and went searching for one for over an hour then took an additional 30 minutes to sterilise it
Baby Maleek Sandy
but by the time they were successful in inserting the tube, the baby had already died.
“The baby came healthy with no respiratory distress and the baby developed all of that and jaundice. The baby got worse… the baby deteriorated very fast. He wasn’t stooling and tummy is swollen and so on. I asked that why the baby deteriorated so fast and then I started talking to the nurses and they started telling me that this is an ongoing situation and that a lot of babies came in good and there is a virus in the ward and they are not telling anyone and they are fed up of telling parents that their baby died of sepsis,” Sandy said.
The man related that no doctor could have given the reason his child died but listed the official cause of death as sepsis. He noted after his baby died, they had a “royal runaround” to have a doctor sign off on the death certificate.
He noted that when they visited the hospital’s morgue for his baby, he was among an overwhelming number of other dead babies and when they saw Maleek, he was in the morgue with all the tubes still inserted in his body.
Maleek was buried on March 15, 2018, in Berbice.
Investigation
Sandy said after his son died, they lodged an official complaint with the GPHC’s complains department and was told they would be contacted within 29 days. However, it has been over two months after they would receive a call from the hospital. He said he along with the child’s mother, were invited for a meeting with the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the hospital and instead of being presented with the findings of the investigation, they were asked for their opinion on what should be done.
The man said this infuriated him and they requested that the NICU be closed down but was told that it is not an option. He further stated that they met with the head surgeon for the first time and was told that the surgery would have been an easy one, but the baby would have died anyway.
He added that when he brought up the issue of the virus the nurses told him about, he was told that the ward was quarantined and disinfected.
“I said if you know there is a virus in the ward and my baby come for such a small surgery which would heal very fast you still allow my baby to go into the ward knowing there is a virus in there killing babies and knowing that if he contract this virus then he will die and they said nothing…,” Sandy related.
He said fiancé and himself are convinced the hospital is covering up the incident, hence the reason they submitted a written complaint to the Guyana Medical Council and even wrote to President David Granger on the matter. He said he was advised by the Ministry of the Presidency to meet with Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence.
He said he has since filed legal proceedings against the hospital for gross negligence. Efforts to contact the GPHC’s CEO and the doctor on the matter proved futile.
