Baby Simeon will be finally laid to rest either next Tuesday or Wednesday. His parents, however, said the child will be buried with many questions still to be answered even after getting a final autopsy report from hospital officials yesterday. The seven-month, two-week-old infant died after his head was slit from ear during a Caesarean-section surgery performed on his mother, Quelly Ann Cottle, 38, at the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital on Carnival Saturday.
A five-page report on the final findings of the autopsy was handed to Cottle and her husband, Emil Millington, by Dr Rodney Ramroop, acting chief executive officer of the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA), during a meeting at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, yesterday.
Millington said among the major findings was the fact that the baby’s head was cut some 70 centimetres across. He added that the report also showed severe bleeding in the brain. Millington, however, noted the fact that the report showed no abnormalities in the liver, spleen or kidneys, but indicated that the lungs were servely underdeveloped. He also questioned whether the document was a deliberate attempt by the hospital authorities to insist that baby Simeon would not have survived due to severe prematurity.
“I am really not comfortable with this part. Everything else was developed but they keep focusing on prematurity as if that was the cause of death ... these people playing politics,” Millington said. Cottle, who shared his concern, said the report showed the combined weight of both lungs was 16 grammes and the baby weighed some 800 grammes. “If everything else was developed how come the lungs collapsed? We feel we got no real answers concerning this,” Cottle said.
“I may have little education but I have common sense, because I am sure there are thousands of premature babies who have survived and are doing well. It’s as if they kept saying my baby never had a chance to survive outside the womb.” She said she asked Ramroop to answer what really caused the lungs to collapse when the rest of the organs were developed, but got not clear answers. On whether the final report had brought some sense of closure to her family, Cottle said it had not made any difference.
“Honestly, it does not matter to me because at the end of the day they keep saying is the prematurity which was standing out despite his head getting cut so severe. She said baby Simeon would most likely be buried in Chaguanas. The doctor who performed the surgery has been suspended with basic pay pending an investigation into the matter.