A flood of complaints and concerns over the services rendered at the Punta Gorda Hospital — and Friday’s death of a 6-month-old baby — has sparked an ad hoc group of Toledo residents to organize a protest to be held in front of the hospital’s door on Wednesday, in a demonstration slated to begin at 8:00 a.m.
Since the death of Baby Andy Jones, seven days after his mother gave birth to him in the PG Hospital with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and desperately screaming for help, a number of other complaints have come to the fore.
Organizer Cristina Coc told Amandala this evening that “a lot of people have been complaining about the situation.”
Amandala was flooded last week with a series of letters not only decrying the death of Baby Jones, but also telling their own terrible tales.
“Another baby died on Friday,” Coc told our newspaper this evening.
She explained that the baby, who hospital sources say was 6 months old, was taken by relatives to the PG Hospital with a fever and partially dehydrated, but they were turned away because, they were told, they needed a referral from the San Antonio Polyclinic in their home village.
(The claim allegedly was that the referral was required under the National Health Insurance Scheme, for the baby to receive treatment in PG.)
It took hours before they could return to Punta Gorda with the baby, and when they did, it was too late.
Coc said, “They couldn’t find the [baby’s] vein,” to administer intravenous re-hydration and the baby died soon after.
Dr. Bhutathi Raju, Acting Deputy Regional Manager, told Amandala, however, that the child was not taken to the PG Hospital until that afternoon, at about 2:00 p.m., when it was rushed to the emergency room.
It was the clinic in Punta Gorda Town, not the hospital, that had received the patient at about 7:30 Friday morning, he added.
A nurse at the nearby clinic in Punta Gorda reportedly told the family that there was a rule that required them to first go back to the San Antonio clinic, before they could attend the PG clinic. Raju said that his information was that the PG clinic had later decided that it would have seen the child anyhow, but by the time the medics there went to inform the family, the mother had left with the baby.
“Our policy is not to refuse any patient; we won’t refuse any patient,” Dr. Raju told Amandala, insisting that it was not a case of the PG hospital rejecting the child. He agreed, however, that the nurse at the PG clinic (at a different location) should never have told the mother to go back to San Antonio with the baby.
When the baby arrived at the PG Hospital Friday afternoon, said Dr. Raju, it was “gasping for breath,” and “seriously dehydrated.”
The baby had been suffering from a high temperature, loose stools, and vomiting, and was so dehydrated when it arrived at the hospital, that the nurses there could not administer intravenous dehydration. It died only hours later.
Director of Health Services, Dr. Michael Pitts, told Amandala today that the Ministry of Health had received the complaint about the baby’s death on Friday, and the matter is under investigation.
They are supposed to deal with the medical emergency; administrative matters are secondary, he asserted.
“That is a serious matter also,” Dr. Pitts told us.
Amandala understands from a separate source that a team from the Ministry of Health is due to visit PG Hospital for an investigation Tuesday.
DHS Pitts informed us that the investigation into the death of Baby Andy Jones is in the final stages and once the family is apprised of the results, the public would be updated.
The families of the deceased babies are expected to be among those who will sound their protest cries on Wednesday.
Coc said that the Toledo Maya Women’s Council (TMWC), the Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action (COLA), and other civil society groups have been invited to join the protest.
She said that their statement to the hospital will be: “Stop the neglect and act more responsibly.”
Poor people can’t afford to go to private doctors and so depend on the public healthcare system, Coc stressed, expressing utter disbelief that a young life was lost under such circumstances again.
Amandala understands from COLA’s PG leader, Wil Maheia, that they do intend to join Wednesday’s protest.