The owner of a private daycare at Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD) has been arrested after a 7-month-old baby died at the facility on Tuesday.
Officials have confirmed that the school was uncertified and was not supposed to be in operation.
The infant’s mother was called to the institution on Tuesday after being informed that her daughter, Oriyah Gravesande, whom she left in the morning hours, was unresponsive. She claimed that she was told that their daughter had fallen off a bed.
“They called me and tell me that our baby was unresponsive when they took her to the health centre and by the time they reached the Georgetown Hospital, she was pronounced dead… she left home good, smiling and everything,” the father stated.
The mother, devastated by the loss of her child, added that she was contacted two hours after the incident and by the time she arrived at the hospital, she was told that her baby had died.
A post-mortem examination was carried out on the seven-month-old’s body and confirmed that she died due to a haemorrhage and compression to the neck. The post-mortem was done at about 9:30h on Wednesday by Government pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh at the Georgetown Public Hospital’s Mortuary.
The body was subsequently handed over to the relative for burial.
The incident has raised concerns about the safety and regulation of private daycares in Guyana. In a similar case in 2019, a three-year-old girl died at a private daycare in Georgetown after being left unsupervised in a vehicle. The owner of the daycare was charged with manslaughter.
The investigation into the latest case is ongoing, and it is not yet known if other staff attached to the daycare have also been arrested.
