The family is still in disbelief over her death; they refuse to say goodbye to her. Late this evening, they visited her gravesite with a birthday cake, wishing her a Happy Birthday.
Her grandmother, mother, aunts and cousins in the accompanying picture were wishing her the same. Incidentally, the house where the picture was taken was the same place Kimora first took sick on Tuesday, April 25.
That same day, her grandmother, Shawn Lemoth, and aunt, Kira Leslie, took her to KHMH?s emergency room. But the family claims that on their first attempt to get help at the KHMH, the hospital?s security guard shut them out, forbidding them to go directly to the front desk.
Now, they feel that they are being shut out again, with the results of a Ministry of Health internal investigation released to the media before the family was even informed of the findings.
They do not accept the report, and feel that the Ministry?s investigating team has not pinpointed the failures at the hospital that they think led to Baby Kimora?s death. They think that Dr. Giovanni Lara is wrongfully getting the blame.
Former KHMH neurologists, Dr. Joel Cervantes and Dr. Lara, expressed the same sentiment. They think that Dr. Lara is being made a scapegoat, while the part that others had to play in the Baby?s death is being covered up.
Kimora?s mother, Kereen Leslie, and her grandmother, Ms. Lemoth, said that they would challenge the Ministry?s report, because they are of the opinion that an entire group of people had a part to play in the baby?s death: firstly, the hospital administration for not ensuring that the hospital has the supplies it needs to care for patients, and secondly, the fact that Kimora was turned away on April 25, when relatives first took the baby to the hospital.
According to Kimora?s aunt, Kira, the doctors told them that they could not help the baby because they had no neurosurgeons and wished them ?good luck? getting help elsewhere.
Lemoth, who is on staff as an auxiliary nurse at the KHMH, said that on April 21, 2006, the KHMH?s administration had issued a memo, indicating that the neurosurgeons were not available. Patients were to be evaluated and referred to a private facility that could help, and the Ministry of Health was to be contacted for assistance in dealing with the case. Lemoth said that those things were never done.
The family told us that errors made in inserting a tube inside Kimora?s stomach caused her to eventually bleed to death. According to them, this was done before Dr. Lara saw the baby.
Now, relatives say, important information on the treatment of Baby Kimora is missing from Kimora?s docket, and had not been presented to the investigating team, including what had happened when she was fitted with an expired shunt when she was only months old, and what happened in those critical hours before she suffered two bouts of cardiac arrests and bled profusely from her internal organs.
Kereen said that when she saw Kimora?s file yesterday, she cried when she realized how much information was missing.
Cervantes remarked that the internal investigation said just what they expected it to say, that Dr. Lara was to blame for Kimora?s death.
?It was expected that they would look for a scapegoat, so as not to show the responsibility of the administration of the hospital,? he remarked. ?If you have no materials and supplies, you can?t do the work.?
Kereen and Ms. Lemoth say that they felt so heartbroken when Dr. Jorge Polanco, head of the investigating team, said that Baby Kimora would have died anyway. ?He?s not God and he?s not a neurosurgeon. How would he know,? Lemoth said, adding that he only knew the limited information that was on Kimora?s files, which, relatives claim, was not the whole story.
Relatives cited other cases of patients living with shunts into their teens. Kereen said that the taxi operator who had dropped her off this evening from work had told her that he has a daughter, 14, living with one. Her sister said she was informed of another person, 19, who is also living with the same condition.
They said that Dr. Lara had always taken care of Kimora?and done so well whenever he was called?since the girl was months old. He did all he could, they expressed. They believe that Dr. Lara was not informed of Kimora?s condition until Friday, April 28.
(See also story on page 15. Relatives say the child?s name is properly spelled Kimora and not Kimorah.)