Baby Simeon will be buried today at the Trees of Righteousness Church, Enterprise, Chaguanas. His mother, Quelly-Ann Cottle, who initially wanted a second autopsy done said she had decided it was best to put her son to rest. "Let him go home. At the end of the day I will get my justice,” Cottle said yesterday. Cottle, 38, went to the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital on Carnival Saturday to have a C-section operation. During the operation the baby’s head was cut. The doctor who did the surgery has been suspended with basic pay.
Cottle was hoping to get another doctor to do a second autopsy but said she did not have the money to do so. Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan, who commented on the family’s wanting another opinion, said: “That’s how it is in this country. Everybody likes second and third autopsies. “But we have faith in our people who have done the autopsy. They are professionals in their own right.” He said Cottle could have told the regional health authority she wanted a second autopsy so as to obtain whatever assistance necessary.
“As minister I have to stay out of it and the regional health authorities, they are the ones to assist in that regard because they are the ones giving the counselling. “But at the end of the day, after the second autopsy, it may show the same thing, or it may show something different and then you may have to go to a third. So you would just prolong whatever it may be,” Khan added. He said the ministry intended to take the results and show them to another pathologist if necessary.
On the independent investigation, he said that was completely in the hands of Attorney General Anand Ramlogan. Khan was fielding questions from the media at the launch of a public volunteer programme at the ministry at Park Street, Port-of-Spain. yesterday.