A 16-month-old toddler remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), which is denying an allegation by his mother that an overdose of medication at the facility is to blame.
Debra Archer of Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara, is calling for hospital authorities to investigate the care of her son, Nicholas Cox, while saying he was given an overdose of gravol when she took him to the institution last Thursday to be treated for diarrhoea and vomiting.
Archer said that her son is unresponsive, now unable to breathe on his own and is defecating blood. She added that according to a doctor at the hospital, her son could suffer from possible brain damage.
But in response to Archer’s allegation, the hospital yesterday said in a press release that the child was taken last Thursday to the institution after being treated for five days for vomiting, diarrhoea and fever at a private hospital.
The hospital said that on arrival, the child was observed to be severely dehydrated and in very critical condition, while still experiencing diarrhoea and vomiting. As a result, IV fluid with medication (flagyl, augmentin and gravol) was immediately administered to him, the release said, but in spite of this, the child showed signs of collapse. After being resuscitated, he was admitted to the ICU, where he remains in a critical condition, the hospital added.
But Archer is alleging that the amount of the medication which was given to her child by a nurse was the cause of him being in a critical condition.
Archer told Stabroek News that on Monday, May 27, her son started to experience vomiting, in addition to diarrhoea the following day. She said that she took the child to a private hospital on Tuesday to see a doctor.
The doctor at the private hospital gave her son an injection along with some medication and told her that he would have to receive three additional injections in the following days.
Archer also said that the doctor told her that if the vomiting and diarrhoea persisted, she should bring him back immediately.
She said that the boy’s diarrhoea and vomiting did not stop and she took him back to the private hospital on Tuesday afternoon. The same doctor told her that the child needed some saline, which was administered to him.
Archer said that she and her son went home for a second time but his condition did not change on Wednesday, so on Thursday she decided to take him to see a doctor at the Georgetown Hospital.
She stated that she saw a doctor, who she informed about her son’s trip to the private hospital and the medication he was given. The doctor then took a blood sample from the child and told her to take him to a nurse for saline.
Archer said she did just what the doctor told her to and while she was waiting for the saline, two nurses came to her.
One of the nurses had a syringe with a substance she told her was gravol. “When I look at the syringe, de syringe was full with gravol, so I attempt to ask her if the dose is not too much for the child but I din ask de nurse ’cause I seh de nurse know what she doing,” she said.
She said that the nurse proceeded to give her son all of the contents of the syringe through a vein on his hand. “Immediately after the child stretch out and he eye turn up and he give two gasp like this [makes the sound]. I ask her wah happen hey and both a dem lef pause,” the woman added.
Upon seeing what had happened to her child, Archer said that she became so shocked that she could not recall when her son was taken out of her hands.
But when she regained her awareness, she saw doctors attending to him and the nurse who had given him the gravol was in a corner crying.
The doctors then told her that her child had lost his breathing and heartbeat but they managed to resuscitate him and he would be placed in the ICU because he was “very sick” after what had happened.
Cox remained in a critical condition since then and has showed no sign of improvement his mother said.
Because of the condition of her child, Archer is calling for an investigation of her son’s treatment. She said if it is found that he was given an overdose, she wants the nurse who administered the medication to her son dismissed.
