The West Canje, Berbice mother of the three children who were admitted to the New Amsterdam Hospital after they took ill suddenly on Wednesday, said doctors were still not finding the cause of their sickness.
Lilawattie ‘Chiney’ Ramdeen’s six-year-old daughter, Devi ‘Tina’ Mangal was the first to fall sick with vomiting, diarrhoea and pain about the body on Tuesday afternoon. She died around 8 am on Wednesday morning after she was taken to the hospital.
A post-mortem examination (PME) is expected to be conducted today to determine the cause of death. Ramdeen’s eldest child, Ajay Mangal, 9, also became ill on Wednesday with symptoms similar to those of his sister and he too was admitted to the hospital.
Subsequently, his two younger siblings, Devishkar Mangal, 7, and one-year-old, Lisa Edwards got sick and they became patients at the institution. While their condition has improved within the last two days, Ajay was still not doing too well.
His mother said yesterday though, that Ajay was more alert and was no longer vomiting whenever he ate.
She told Stabroek News that she asked the doctor was exactly was wrong with her children because she was worried about them. The most the doctor could tell her, she said, was that the children were not the victims of food poisoning as had been suspected.
And in a new development, Ramdeen herself was hospitalized on Saturday (just for the day) and had to take saline after she too experienced symptoms similar to those of her children.
According to her the doctor discharged Devishkar and Lisa on Saturday and she was making arrangements to take them home when hospital staff informed her that they had received instructions to keep them until the PME had been completed.
There were rumours that the children were not eating proper meals, but Ramdeen and her reputed husband, Carl Edwards – the stepfather of the three older children and Lisa’s father – vehemently denied this claim.
