Baby's 'superficial injury' to be investigated - Opposition spokesman on health is not pleased

The Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA) has launched an investigation into a message that has making the rounds on social media where a mother claimed that she was neglected by medical officials at the Mandeville Regional Hospital after a piece of tile from the ceiling of the facility fell, hitting her  two-month-old baby in the head last Friday.

Public relations representative at SRHA, Michael Bent, told THE STAR that the matter is being investigated even though the child was treated for the injury on the same day it happened.

“An investigation is going on right as we speak,” Bent said yesterday.

He said the CEO of the hospital had met with the mother after the baby was treated for the ‘superficial’ injury.

“The baby was treated on Friday. And, arrangement was made for her to take back the child today [yesterday], but she has not return up to this time. [On Friday] an X- Ray was done and also a CT scan and none of them showed anything,” Bent said. “[It was] Superficial injury in terms of the cut.”

A picture posted to social media showed the baby with a scar in the head.

When asked about the conditions of the hospital and why tiles were falling from the ceilings, injuring patients, Bent said that he was not aware that the hospital was in a deplorable state.

“It is not anything major. It's only one of those plastic ceiling tiles,” Bent said.

However, opposition spokesman on health, Dr Dayton Campbell, said that the incident further highlights the crisis the health sector is facing.

“It is a crisis and it should be treated as such,” Campbell said.

“I am dissatisfied with the general state of health care delivered in the country, and I think those who stand to suffer the most are those who are least able to afford it because those who can afford do not have to contend with the level of disregard and disrespect that others who can’t seek health care elsewhere have to contend with.”

Campbell said he believes that if the incident had gone the other way and the child was injured while in the care of the mother, then it is a possibility that the mother would have to answer to the State.

“If the woman had been negligent and injured her child, you know that the CDA would have gone in and possibly taken away the child and say that it is child abuse, but she was at a health care facility and they just brush her aside,” Campbell said.