A six-year-old girl passed away during the wee hours of today after she was taken to the Linden Hospital, suffering from respiratory challenges.
Medical Superintendent of the Hospital (ag), Dr Joseph London confirmed that the child died at around 01:30hrs today.
The child suffered a mild fever along with shortness of breath and tummy pains.
The pediatric team immediately conducted some x-rays and other tests after, which it was recommended that she be transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital for a higher level of care.
Dr London, however, disclosed that within 90 minutes of arrangements being made the child subsequently died while in the Emergency Room.
“While we were waiting to transfer her, she was not maintaining oxygen over 70, which made her unstable for transfer. She was resuscitated to comfortable level and her condition continued to worsen resulting in her dying. Her condition was suspicious; however, we were unable to conduct a test on her,” Dr London told a meeting which was held today to discuss the situation.
The cause of death of the child is yet to be determined.
INews understands that tests will be conducted to determine if the child might have died from COVID-19.
A surveillance team in already in the area.
The Regional Health Authorities in Region Ten held an emergency meeting earlier today to address several issues including their contingency plan to address the rapidly growing COVID-19.
The meeting, was attended by the Mayor of Linden, health and RDC officials, a team from the Ministry of Public Health led by DCMO Dr Karen Boyle.
Accompanying Dr Boyle were Dr Luella Sucie Epidemiologist, Dr Tracey Bovell Emergency Medicine Specialist and Bonita Lowenfield Mc Donald.
Dr Boyle informed the meeting that the test results may not be accurate, given that the child was already placed in the morgue.
“It was important for the medical staff to have tested her within 24 hours after she would have died…taking into account that she [the child] may have already been taken to the morgue where she is in the fridge so I am not sure if the samples being taken off will yield a proper results,” she said.
