A post-mortem examination on the remains of six-year-old Akila Sandy who succumbed on Monday at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) from a mystery illness could not determine the cause of death.
A relative told Stabroek News yesterday that samples were sent out of the country for toxicological testing and the results are expected to be back in two weeks’ time.
Her two sisters; two-year-old Destiny and 18-month-old Devine were also hospitalised at the GPH but their condition is said to be improving.
Akila became sick on July 24 with ‘roasting’ fever and complained of continuous pain in her feet. She was taken to the Supenaam Health Centre, where she received treatment for the pain but it did not help.
Subsequently, Destiny also started experiencing similar symptoms and was “screaming for her foot too, so we took them both to Suddie, where they run blood tests.”
Their mother, Wendy said that after doctors at the Suddie Hospital recognised that Akila was not responding to treatment, they transferred both her and Destiny to the GPH last Wednesday.
At the GPH, doctors ran tests on Akila, whose condition was growing worse. The girls’ father, Phillip said that on Wednesday afternoon when he visited his daughter, he found her writhing on the bed in the Accident and Emergency Department.
“The doctor said they can’t treat her properly until they know what wrong with her, so they ran a lot of tests. First, he said he thought might be something wrong with her brain, so they did a brain scan but there was nothing wrong with her brain. Then, they did an X-ray and they did a lot of blood test. Some results come back negative and some ain’t come back as yet. The doctor said she started bleeding inside,” he said.
While these tests were being conducted, Akila’s case was becoming worse and she was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where she slipped into a coma and died. In that period, Devine began displaying similar symptoms.
