A day after the death of Sharezer Mendonca, the third child to have died after receiving pre-chemotherapy treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), her family was plunged into further turmoil after learning that her body was handed over to another family for burial.
Additionally, the family, which is considering legal action against the public hospital, also learnt that an unauthorised autopsy was performed on the corpse of the six-year-old as a result of the mix up.
Ganesh Hira, the attorney for the family, told Stabroek News last night in a telephone interview that the family is awaiting a pathologist from Trinidad and Tobago to conduct an independent autopsy to determine the cause of Mendonca’s death, which is now the subject of an investigation.
Mendonca, of Queenstown, Essequibo Coast, had been in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the GPHC for approximately a week before she succumbed.
On January 3rd, Mendonca and two others, seven-year-old Corwin Edwards, who passed away on January 14th, and three-year-old Roshini Seegobin, who died on January 18th, were administered pre-chemotherapy treatment and were paralysed hours later. As a result, they were hospitalised up to the time of their respective deaths.
Hira said the possibility of legal action is being explored as it is felt that there is evidence of professional negligence and gross misconduct by the hospital. He noted that he and attorney Chandrapratesh Satram are gathering information and have written the hospital to make Mendonca’s medical records available. He said once the information is gathered, they will determine if they are in a position to take legal action against the hospital.
Hira also explained that the family had written to the hospital requesting that the planned autopsy be postponed and they were given all assurance that their request would be granted.
However, he said when the family went to the hospital’s mortuary yesterday to transfer the girl’s body to a private mortuary in the city, the attendants showed them a different corpse. “When the porter showed the family the body in the fridge, they said it was not Sharezer and that is when they start making calls. The body was given to another family who had a six-year old,” he noted.
The hospital subsequently made checks to locate the body and Hira said it was eventually discovered that it was being transported by a family from Bartica.
The attorney went on to say that when he contacted the GPHC’s Chief Executive Officer on Friday afternoon, he was told that the Bartica family identified Mendonca as their daughter, resulting in a post-mortem being performed on the body. “The pathologist indicated that he did not perform any post-mortem on Sharezer and the hospital records showed that she was not booked out of the hospital. We don’t know for sure what happened and we will like to have a clear
explanation,” Hira added.
The Bartica family, he said, also expressed surprise when they discovered that they were transferring the wrong body back home for burial.
Despite the autopsy already being done on Sharezer’s body, the pathologist from Trinidad and Tobago is scheduled to perform the second autopsy on Monday.
Following the death of the first two children, the hospital had announced that it was investigating their deaths and the use of the drug, which was not named, had since been halted.
In a statement on Sunday night, the GPHC announced that it had “launched an investigation to determine the reason for the adverse reaction to the medication.”
“That investigation involves the interviewing of all medical persons directly involved along with an assessment of the medication administered,” it added.
In its statement, the hospital also called on the public to desist from speculation “on what is a sensitive matter and await the findings of the investigation.”
