A four-year-old boy, who was admitted last Wednesday to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) for a bitten tongue, is now dead after suffering multiple heart crises.
Jaden Smith was playing at his 35 West Ruimveldt Housing Scheme home when he tripped over a paint tin and bit his tongue, his mother Natalie Caseley told Stabroek News. On the advice of his grandmother, the boy was taken to the East La Penitence Health Centre by his mother.
On a referral from the health centre, he was taken to the GPH for treatment. After a decision was made by a doctor to have some stitches done, relatives say that Jaden was given medication around 15:00hrs, to render him unconscious. After the boy failed to fall asleep, he was given another dose of the drug but it once again did not have the desired effect. It was then decided that the boy would be taken to the theatre for surgery. This was sometime after 18:00hrs, his mother said.
Caseley was never able to see her son walk out of the theatre. She was notified that her son’s heart had failed during the operation and he was placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital. Jaden had been in the ICU since last week Wednesday until early yesterday morning when his mother received a call that his heart had failed again. When she arrived to be with her son, his heart experienced three more episodes before it stopped completely.
When contacted by Stabroek News, GPH CEO Michael Khan stated that he will be commenting on the boy’s death this morning.
