– admits she is unable to care for them
No suitable accommodation has been found for the three children hospitalized after their release from state care but Human Services Ministry Permanent Secretary Trevor Thomas said they will not be returned to their mother, who has indicated that she is unable to adequately care for them.
Thomas yesterday said that the children, aged five, three and one, remain hospitalized at the West Demerara Regional Hospital, but he added that the Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA) will find accommodation for them.
The children were taken into custody by the agency after one of them was burnt on his face three months ago, but they were later returned to their mother. According to Thomas, she took them to the hospital because she unable to take care of them. However, an official at a day care facility the children attended prior to them being taken into custody had said last week that she advised the mother to take the children to the hospital because they appeared ill. According to the official, the mother took the children to the centre and asked for them to be re-enrolled. “But I tell she no we can’t take them back because they looked terrible,” the official had said. The official had said the day care was concerned that the skin rash the children had was contagious and they could not have exposed the other children to it.
While the CCPA last week had said it would have advised the police to institute a charge against the mother under the Protection of Children Act, since she had re-united with her common-law husband, who was charged with injuring the eldest of the three children, Thomas said they are focusing on helping the mother. He said the woman is in need of medical and emotional assistance. “She has admitted that she cannot take care of the children,” Thomas said.
He explained that it was shortly after the children were returned to her care that it was learnt that her reputed husband, who is charged with injuring the eldest of the three children, was back in the home and they decided since then that the children would be returned to the custody of the state.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Red Cross Society’s Children’s Convalescent Home, in a letter to this newspaper published in Sunday’s edition, said two of the children were malnourished when they were admitted to the home on July 14.
In particular, the youngest child, according to the letter, had severe wasting of marasmus while the second eldest child had the distended belly of kwashiorkor. The youngest child was also admitted with diarrhoea and was hospitalized for the same ailment along with severe malnutrition at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) for approximately two days one week after admission to the home. “The older boy had a horrible burn on his face, open and raw,” the letter said.
The letter said the children were not accompanied by any medication or instruction on their specific care nor had they undergone any medical prior to their admission, which is mandated by the Minimum Standards and Operational Guidelines.
But Thomas told this newspaper yesterday that medicals were done on the children before they were admitted since Red Cross does not accept children without this being done.
An initial statement from the CCPA had indicated that because the children were grieving, they were not eating and it was confirmed that the children were later hospitalized after showing signs of malnutrition.
The letter from Red Cross said the children were not grieving at any point for their mother and had not been losing weight because of it. In fact, the mother was accused of eating the children’s food whenever it was given to her to feed them when she visited. The letter said that on September 24 the mother went to the home with a letter from the social worker instructing that the children be discharged. The children were eventually discharged, even though staff had asked the mother not to take the children. According to the letter, they had no “marks or sores on their skin.” At that pointed, the oldest child was not malnourished but his siblings showed differing degrees of malnourishment, the letter said. “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,” the letter said.
Thomas yesterday pointed out that the children were not removed from their mother’s home because they were ill, but rather because one of them was abused. He said after the agency would have worked with the mother and was convinced she had severed the relationship with the alleged abuser then the next step was returning to the children to her custody. He added that she kept begging for them and the children were grieving for her. He pointed out that the agency would have continued to work with the mother and if indeed the children were sick then assistance would have been given in that area too. He said there had been no report from Red Cross home during the time the children were there that they were ill.
The day care worker, who had given some details about the burning of the five-year-old, had recalled that on June 21, the father of the children took them to the centre, where it was immediately realized that the older child had burns to his face. The official said when questioned, the father said the child had an accident—an explanation that was not believed. When the child was questioned in front of his stepfather, he made certain allegations of being burnt with hot water and the police were immediately contacted. The official said it was requested that the stepfather remain until the police arrived and he did so.
As soon as the lawmen arrived, they were forced to rush the child to the hospital where he was seen by a doctor. The stepfather was then arrested by the police and charged and placed before the court. He was granted bail and soon after he returned to the home.
