Dear Editor,
This letter is in response to the editorial in SN on Thursday, October 14, 2010.
Firstly, we the members of staff at the Red Cross Children’s Convalescent Home would like to bring forward the facts surrounding the case of the three children currently admitted to the West Demerara Hospital.
Upon the children’s admission, on July 14, 2010 to the Convalescent Home the two younger ones were malnourished, with the youngest child in a state of severe malnourishment. The older boy had a horrible burn on his face, open and raw.
The children were not accompanied by any medication or instruction on their specific care nor had they undergone any medical prior to admission, which is mandated by the Minimum Standards and Operational Guidelines. We were told the children had been continuously neglected by their mother, which led to the father allegedly pushing the oldest child’s face into a pot of boiling water. The condition in which they arrived at the home confirmed this.
As stated above, the children were admitted to the Convalescent Home in a state of malnourishment, with the second child displaying the distended belly of kwashiorkor and the youngest displaying the severe wasting of marasmus. The youngest child was also admitted with diarrhoea and was hospitalized for the same ailment along with severe malnutrition at the GPHC for approximately two days one week after admission to the home.
When the mother visited her children, which was not often, she always had a bad attitude with the staff and complained that she wanted her children back home with her. When questioned about why the children were in such a terrible state of malnutrition she replied that the children don’t like to eat from her and that they only eat from the teachers at the daycare.
It was observed that whenever the mother visited and was asked to help to feed her children she would be found eating out the children’s food and even drinking their porridge. The mother also disclosed to staff that she was not home often because she was seeking employment.
Staff went into their own pockets to purchase appetite stimulants, vitamins and ointments for these children. The youngest child was just beginning to show signs of improvement and was able to raise her head and look around. A staff member even took the youngest child to the hospital to ascertain whether there was anything wrong with her since she could not gain weight.
Further, the children were not grieving at any point for their mother and had not been losing weight because of it. If this was the case then they had to have been grieving for her long before their admission to the Convalescent Home.
When the mother returned with a letter of discharge for her three children on September 24, 2010, at 4.45 pm, many of the staff questioned why she would want to take the children out of the home so quickly when they had barely been able to benefit from the added nutrition and care.
Some pleaded with her to leave the younger two, as they were in most need of nourishment.
Some even asked her if she could afford to feed them, as it was believed that her husband was still incarcerated and she was unemployed. As the children were admitted to West Demerara Hospital at the beginning of this week, it is impossible to state that they were admitted hours after their release from this home, which took place at least two weeks ago.
The children had no marks or sores on their skin when discharged into their mother’s care. The oldest child was not malnourished, though the two younger children were in differing degrees of malnourishment.
The error of the staff at the Red Cross Children’s Convalescent Home was to allow a mother, who we believed was unfit and irresponsible, to leave the institution with the children at the behest of the social worker. In the future, we hope that our opinion of a child’s fitness to return home is sought by the social worker before the parent arrives at our door waving a letter and demanding to have their children.
Praying for the speedy recovery of the children
Yours faithfully,
Bernadette Adonis
On behalf of Members of Staff at the Red Cross Children’s Convalescent Home
Editor’s note
The editorial in question did not state that the children were admitted to hospital “hours after their release” from the Convalescent Home. We were unable to establish the interval of time involved because we failed obtain a comment from the Red Cross for the article we published on October 12 on which the editorial was based.
