A less-than-one-month-old baby died at the New Amsterdam Hospital after being in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for four weeks.
In addition to having questions relating to the treatment of their baby, the parents are questioning the delay in handing over the body.
On Tuesday, persons turned up for the funeral rites, but the parents, Devika Ramnarine and Gobindra Sahadeo, were unable to collect their baby’s corpse.
Ayaan Sahadeo was born at the Port Mourant Hospital on March 2 and shortly after he was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he remained until his passing on March 28.
Records indicate that the mother had a gestation of 28 weeks which is equivalent to seven months.
Ramnarine said she was told that she would not deliver a full-term baby and was eventually taken to Port Mourant Hospital where she gave birth to the infant weighing one kilogram.
Ramnarine said soon after the birth, she and her baby were transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
“They had to rush with him to New Amsterdam because of his breathing. They said that because he was premature, his lungs did not get to develop properly so they had to give him oxygen and put him into the incubator. So we had to go to New Amsterdam Hospital, because Port Mourant didn’t have an incubator,” Ramnarine told this publication.
According to the 20-year-old mother of a four-year-old boy, she was subsequently told that her child had an infection and was being treated for it.
Two weeks later, he was removed from the incubator and said to be progressing well.
“I get to hold him one time, because he was out of the incubator for one day and one night. The next morning, they say that the breathing stop again and he had to get the oxygen again. They put him back in the incubator and put on back the oxygen and they say the infection get more worst so they put a stronger dose of antibiotic,” the woman related.
According to her, the following day she was told that he was critical. The baby died on March 28.
His father, Gobindra said since Saturday he has been trying to get his child’s body for burial, but has been unsuccessful.
On Sunday last, he attempted to collect the child’s body from the hospital for burial ,but was told that because it was the Easter weekend, he could not do so and should return on Tuesday.
Before returning on Tuesday, he made arrangements for his son’s funeral. However, when he returned on Tuesday, he was told that an autopsy would have to be performed before the body was released.
“I invested a lot of money to rent a tent and chairs and did some other things for the funeral. Everybody was here at home for the funeral, and when I went, they told me that I cannot get baby.”
“Wednesday, I went and see that they did not cut baby and came home back.”
The family is pleading for someone in authority to have the hospital release the body for burial.
