Family left with questions after one-year-old dies at Sav hospital

WESTERN BUREAU:

“I AM asking, ‘God, did I fail him as a mother? Should I have let him stay home?’ Something has to be wrong, I kept him so long, almost two years.”

Those are the bitter thoughts swirling in 24-year-old Desrine Malcolm’s mind after receiving the heart-wrenching news that her one-year-old son, Joshua Cabana, who suffered from cerebral palsy, died at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland on Thursday.

“Joshua went to the hospital on October 8, and then he came back out because they said ‘nothing had happened’. But I saw he was not defecating, so I brought him back, and I sat up all night with him and they were still not attending to him. He was in the hospital for a week, and the hospital won’t take blame for anything,” Malcolm recalled with grief in her voice.

The death of little Joshua, who would have celebrated his second birthday on November 16, is especially gut-wrenching because it happened just over a week after The Gleaner published Malcolm’s plea for assistance for her child, who suffered from epileptic seizures and was unable to walk, talk, or feed himself normally.

The news comes as an utter shock to the family, who have been seeking answers from the hospital as to what exactly caused the baby’s death.

“They are saying he had a seizure, but one doctor is saying he had a cardiac arrest. So it is two different things I am hearing,” Malcolm told The Sunday Gleaner. “He was in the hospital because he could not pass stool for five days and he had to be admitted. It was a rough process and I had to admit him, and I just had to leave him under the doctor’s care and let them admit him to the paediatric ward because they would not admit him, because they said the case was not serious.”

‘NO GOOD INFORMATION’

Although she was able to see where her son’s body was still lying on his hospital bed, Malcolm admitted that she could not bring herself to look fully at him.

“Joshua was still on the bed, and I saw his hands, but I could not look at him being dead. I want to keep his last moment with me, as I probably would have just died if I looked at him dead,” Malcolm said in a barely composed voice. “Nobody came to me directly and said ‘Joshua stifled’ or anything like that. I was so shocked that I could not stand, and there wasn’t any doctor to give me any update.”

Joshua’s grand-aunt, Cynthia Williams, said that the family’s tireless efforts to find out how and why Joshua died have been fruitless.

“One doctor is giving some information, and another doctor is giving some information, and no good information we can get from none of the doctors. They are just talking and talking, and we have to wait on them, and the baby was born in here and has been in and out of here,” the enraged Williams stated. “She (Malcolm) came down here for help, and they are going to tell her that the matter was never serious. We are just asking and seeking attention, and we are getting no attention about the baby, because we want him to be buried in my yard, and it is a run-around with us, and so we turn idiots now and don’t know what to do.”

COMPLICATIONS DURING CHILDBIRTH

Baby Joshua’s short life was already a struggle from the moment he came into this world, as he had to be put on oxygen almost immediately after being born with a one per cent heartbeat.

In addition to his seizures, he was also unable to digest solid foods due to problems with his digestive system, requiring him to be fed liquids through a feeding tube attached to his stomach.

His medical issues are distressingly common among many cerebral palsy cases, as according to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation, 25 per cent of the approximately 18 million cerebral palsy patients worldwide have epilepsy, 25 per cent are unable to talk, and 20 per cent have to be tube-fed.

But Malcolm is not only blaming the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital for not caring adequately for Joshua in his final hours, but also for contributing to him developing cerebral palsy in the first place.

According to her, his birthing complications came about because she was neglected while she was in labour.

“Joshua took too long to come out, because my water broke one night before he was born and I rushed to them and told them, and nobody looked at me. Because of that water that burst, Joshua was suffocating inside,” said Malcolm.

“Joshua came out like that in the first place with one per cent heartbeat because of negligence. They had said my cervix could not open (during the childbirth process), so I requested a C-section, but they said no, that’s not how it works, because the vagina can stretch. I pushed and pushed, and they said the baby is not coming, so they cut the vagina three times,” she recounted.

“I pushed three more times and Joshua came out blue, with one per cent heartbeat. When I was calling the nurse and said I want to defecate, the lady said ‘sit on the bed’ and she was on her phone. It was negligence.”

Efforts by The Sunday Gleaner to speak with the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in relation to Malcolm’s claims were unsuccessful, as the hospital’s paediatric consultant, Dr Ludrick Morris, said that he was not authorised to speak with the media, and directed us to the office of the hospital’s chief executive officer.

However, the administrators in that office were unavailable for comment.

editorial@gleanerjm.com