EXPECT NOTHING FROM PROBE INTO BABIES’ DEATHS

MEDICAL experts fear the probe into the recent deaths of seven babies at Port of Spain General Hospital will amount to nothing.

They question whether autopsies of the deceased babies were conducted and steps were taken to determine the source of the fatal bacterial infection.

The medical specialists said it is important that there be swabs to assist in the investigation.

“Unless the offending agents have been identified and isolated, there could be a recurrence at the neonatal unit,” one seasoned medical professional said.

He explained that there is an international medical template for such enquiries.

“The chain of events must be properly investigated,” he explained.

“There must be a comprehensive analysis,” he stressed, “since this indicates that something has gone awfully wrong with the care of babies at public institutions.

“This is a major indictment on our health system.”

The babies died from neonatal sepsis within four days at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The Ministry of Health is investigating the deaths, and Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said stringent infection control and prevention practices have been implemented.

Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) and Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) are conducting separate enquiries.

Deyalsingh said that laboratory tests were carried out at the neonatal ward, and they uncovered three organisms that pose risks to babies.

In 2020, he boasted that neonatal deaths were reduced by half, to seven per 1,000 babies.

He attributed that to improved workflow at public medical institutions.

Opposition parliamentarian Dr. Lackram Bodoe called on Deyalsingh to “take responsibility” for the fatalities and resign.

Bodoe urged an independent external investigation to be done appropriately with no “cover-ups.”

Families of the babies are filing a joint legal claim against the hospital for medical negligence.

Attorney Anand Ramlogan said he is seeking “full, frank disclosure” on the number of babies who died at the hospital since the start of the year.

Ramlogan complained that the families have not received relevant documents which they requested from the hospital.

He said there are concerns that the “medical notes and records could be changed and altered to fabricate a defence or mitigate the negligent conduct” of the hospital’s staff.

He stated there are reasons to believe that relevant documents were “doctored and changed.”

The attorney stated that a baby with a serious vital infection was transferred from St. Clair Hospital to the neonatal unit of Port of Spain Hospital “where the risk of transmission and exposure to infection was reasonably foreseeable.”

The reduction of neonatal deaths is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Deyalsingh said in 2020 that Trinidad and Tobago had achieved that goal.

Studies two decades ago found that the mortality rate for babies at local hospitals was as high as 27 per cent.

The deaths of six babies at San Fernando General Hospital in 1998 were said to have been caused by a neonatal employee who failed to wash hands properly between patients.

A study of Mount Hope Maternity Unit in 1997 found the highest number of neonatal deaths in the Caribbean.