Death of boy 4, sparks another probe at GPHC

Dec 11, 2013 News

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Instead of preparing to celebrate the festive season, an East Ruimveldt family is making arrangements to bury one of its youngest members.

Four-year-old Jaden Mars, a student of Ascension Nursery School, was pronounced dead at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), a few hours after he was admitted there last week Wednesday to have his damaged tongue sutured.
A heartbroken Natalie Caseley, mother of the dead child, passionately intimated yesterday that she simply wants answers for his sudden demise.
“From a baby he was always healthy, well-fed and well-taken care of; he wasn’t sickly…so he shouldn’t be dead.”
According to her, Jaden was taken to the hospital with a cut on his tongue which resulted when he accidentally fell and hit his chin on a five-gallon bucket.
This publication was informed that the child had just returned home from school on Wednesday last around 12:30 hours and was playing in the family’s sitting room as his maternal grandmother, Nancy Gittens, had forbidden him from venturing outside. Gittens was reportedly cooking at the time of the child’s fall.
It certainly wasn’t difficult for her to ascertain what had occurred when she spun around to the loud wails of Jaden, since the sitting room and kitchen share the same half of the modest domicile.
Upon recognising that “his teeth bite his tongue and his mouth was full of blood,” Gittens hurriedly called for a taxi and rushed her grandson to the East La Penitence Health Centre, a short distance away. There the child’s mouth was washed and medical personnel there were able to halt the bleeding before referring him to the GPHC to facilitate stitching of the tongue.
According to Caseley, she first learnt of the incident when Gittens, via telephone, informed her that she had to take the child to the public hospital for further medical attention.
“She told me Jaden hit his teeth and she was taking him to the hospital…I don’t play with my kids, so I immediately left work, even though was ‘just teeth bite tongue’ and I got there (GPHC) at the same time they got there.”
Caseley recalled waiting at the hospital a short while before Jaden was triaged and his condition at that point was not deemed an emergency.

“Even to me it was not an emergency…He (Jaden) was telling me ‘mommy, the tongue get better, leh we go home now; I wanna go home now mommy…’ He was alert and was even asking me ‘mommy why the place smell so’, ‘mommy leh we go outside and get some breeze’.”
“I started thinking that they taking real long,” Caseley said.
Shortly after, they were being attended to by a female doctor who Caseley described as “really nice.” The doctor, according to her, administered 25 milligrams of Ketamine to Jaden, in order to put him to sleep and mend his tongue. However, even 25 more milligrams of the medicine, which is used for the purpose of general anaesthesia, had still not brought Jaden’s energetic body into submission.
According to Caseley, the doctor seemed surprised that Jaden had not fallen asleep, even as she related that his age and 19-kilogram (42 pounds) weight would make it impossible for her to administer anymore of the medicine.
“She said ‘this is a strong child you have here; is what you feeding this boy?’” said Caseley as she recalled how all the medical practitioners who saw Jaden developed quite a fondness for him.
Before long, the attending doctor concluded that she would have to send Jaden to the theatre where he would be administered controlled medication and sutured, a process she said would take no longer than 15 minutes.
But according to Caseley, who remained with her son until he was taken into the theatre, about eight medical professionals emerged from the theatre about one hour later and informed her that “ your baby was under anaesthetic and his heart crashed. We resuscitated him and we carried him into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) but he didn’t regain consciousness.”
“I kept asking ‘Is he going to be okay? Is he going to be okay? They told me to keep praying…and then they suddenly turned ‘secret agent’…nobody was telling me anything,” the distraught woman recounted.
There are reports that something went terribly wrong in the theatre which prevented the flow of oxygen to the child’s brain.
“I saw my child strapped-up…he was on a respirator to help him breathe” a sobbing Caseley related yesterday, even as she disclosed how the situation has left Jaden’s father, Junior Mars, in anguish. “That boy was his life.”
Caseley, who is six months pregnant and the mother of almost two years old Jada, recounted that throughout the wait outside the theatre she had a severe headache and back pain and was sure that something was amiss, although a nurse had assured her that things were going to be okay. She was early yesterday informed that her son had passed away.
Caseley was invited to a meeting with officials of the hospital who disclosed that there is an ongoing investigation.
A post mortem examination is expected to be conducted on Jaden’s remains today.
According to a tearful Nancy Gittens, “Jaden was always sweet and funny; I loved my grandson…I used to take out his picture all the time, he was not no piece a thing knocking about.”

 

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