Dear Editor,
The Georgetown Public Hospital Cor-poration is aware of the claims made by the relatives of Ms. Shaliyah Darlington, a patient with a high-risk pregnancy, who was referred to the GPHC’s care from a private hospital one day prior to delivering prematurely. While the GPHC sympathizes with Ms. Darlington and her family in their time of bereavement, we wish to categorically emphasize that any patient being managed in an Intensive Care Unit is considered critical until they have been discharged into a step-down unit.
In this case, Ms. Darlington’s baby was being managed in the Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU), as premature babies are at great risk due to the inability of their organs to function the way they should. The capable and competent Neonatal Team at the GPHC is always committed to keeping babies alive – unfortunately, sometimes babies succumb to illness. As always, we encourage our patients, and their relatives, to utilize the resources available at the hospital as a first resort for getting information or making complaints, so that appropriate and timely recourse can be taken.
Sincerely,
Jai Lall
PRO
GPHC
