Senior reporter
jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt
Attorney Anand Ramlogan, SC, is calling for the urgent disclosure of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) report into the deaths of babies at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
The former attorney general, who is representing the affected families, yesterday said the Health Minister must deliver on his word to make the findings public.
He said, “We therefore call upon Minister Terrence Deyalsingh to disclose a copy of the PAHO investigative report to us as a matter of urgency. This is necessary because the NWRHA has refused to provide a copy of the internal investigative report on the basis that it is being prepared for internal use, the NWRHA has refused to pay for a specialist doctor to review the medical records so that the grieving mothers can obtain the necessary medical expert evidence for them, the grieving mothers and the public have a right to know what went wrong and what caused the death of their babies.”
On Friday, Ministry of Health officials were handed the much-anticipated report. In a statement, the ministry noted that clinical and technical staff of both the ministry and the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) will now conduct an internal review of the findings in keeping with established standard practice before it is then made public.
Ramlogan, however, said he suspected the report may be biased, as the investigative team failed to interview affected families and would have compiled information based on accounts from the staff.
“The minister has promised that this investigation will not be swept under the carpet and we therefore expect full and frank and prompt disclosure of this report in the public interest,” he said”
“The bereaved mothers whose babies died at the NICU in the PoSGH were never interviewed by PAHO’s investigative team and have understandably expressed their disappointment, frustration and concern about the possibility that the PAHO investigation could be biased. PAHO interviewed the medical staff at the PoSGH and would have therefore prepared this report based on their one-sided, self-serving version of events.”
Ramlogan said it was critical that the report was not altered to provide political leverage.
He said, “Our clients have thus far therefore been left in the dark where this investigation is concerned, and it is high time that they be made privy to the contents of this long-awaited report. They live in the hope that it was not sanitised and designed simply to do political damage control for the Government.”
The PAHO team was selected in April for the independent investigation and included Professor of Paediatrics, Global Health and Epidemiology at the George Washington University, USA, Dr Nalini Singh MD, MPH; clinical microbiologist and head of microbiology at Centro de Asistencia Medica Soriano in Uruguay Dr Grisel Rodriguez, MD, PH; and Newborn intensive care specialist and head of the Neonatal Care Intensive Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados, Dr Gillian Birchwood, MD.
The team landed in T&T on April 22 and completed its in-country mission in the space of four days.