Six months after she was punched in her head, allegedly by her father during a fight with her mother, 8-month-old Reshma Deodat succumbed to her injuries on April 25 at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
An autopsy report revealed that the baby died of inflammation of the brain.
The infant’s grandmother Bibi Shakira Alrasheed told Stabroek News that the child sustained a fractured skull when she was accidentally punched in the head at just two months old.
Alrasheed said the infant’s parents were fighting when the incident occurred.
She stated that her daughter, who was living in an abusive relationship for months, related to her that she was sweeping her yard when the baby started to cry and she went into the house to check on her.
“That’s when he get vexed and started to row with her and slap her up and punch her. She tell me she had the baby in her hands when he went to punch her and he missed and hit the baby instead,” she stated.
She said further that her daughter rushed to her house and told her that the baby fell off a bed while she was washing clothes downstairs. “I didn’t believe her because a two-month baby can’t fall off a bed just suh!”
Alrasheed said the child’s head was dented and her eyes were black and blue.
Her daughter, she said, took the child to a health centre in Berbice but upon seeing the severity of her condition, the doctor referred her to the New Amsterdam Hospital. There she was again referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital and admitted.
Reshma was discharged two weeks later. Yet, her condition worsened and she was readmitted to the hospital and diagnosed with excess fluid in the head and haemorrhaging in the brain.
However, after many weeks in the hospital and undergoing several surgeries, Reshma succumbed to her injuries. She was buried on May 1.
Alrasheed said she was upset that her grandchild had to suffer the blow of an abusive relationship, and that her daughter chooses to remain in it. “I don’t know why she stays with him and she is pregnant again. I don’t know if he is threatening her or if he is beating her,” she lamented.
“But if they got to get lock up they should get lock up. I don’t care. She is my daughter but she choosing to live in this relationship and she lied over and over about what happened to the baby,” she stated, noting that her daughter told her that she was also nursing the infant when she fell asleep and the child fell out of her hand.
“First the child fall off a bed then the child fall out her hand. She trying to shield her husband,” she stated.
She said that the police were awaiting a medical report from the hospital and the post-mortem examination before the file is sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The Child Care and Protection Agency had given Alrasheed custody of the child after she was injured.
