Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan described the recent death of a newborn at the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital as an “adverse event” in a ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday. It was an obvious reference to the Carnival Saturday death of a newborn baby boy who died after a C-section was performed on his mother, Quelly Ann Cottle. The child’s head was cut during the surgery and he died minutes later.
Khan told legislators Attorney General Anand Ramlogan would undertake an independent investigation into that adverse event, and he could say no more on it. Earlier in the same statement he said the country’s under-five mortality rate in 2002 was 27.4. It had since decreased by 41 per cent to 16, he added. The minister told legislators that approximately 64 per cent of the under -five mortality rate occurred during the neonatal years, adding that, prematurity accounted for 58 per cent of those neo-natal deaths.
He said: “We have been saving babies in the last couple years of 22 and 23 weeks’ gestation, at under 400 grammes.” He pointed out that the neo-natal rate was 20.2 in 2002 and it decreased to 9.4 in 2008. He said the infant mortality rate had decreased to 13.2 and the maternal mortality rate in 2010 was 46 and was decreasing. He said the Government was doing all it could to address these specific health issues.