Doctor leaves needle in 5-y-o’s buttocks

On Tuesday April 23, Ava-Dawn Morrison's five year old daughter told her that she was bitten by an insect.

Crying out in pain, she rushed to her assistance only to find out that her daughter sat on a needle that broke in her buttocks.

Shaken by the discovery, Morrison said she rushed to the nearby clinic in the Bethel community in Westmoreland and was told to take her baby to the hospital.

"I went to the Cornwall Regional (Hospital). They said they wanted to do an X-ray to see if they could take it out. In the evening, they said they were going to take her to Trelawny because they didn't have the tools to use to take it out,' she said.

Since that day, she said she has been getting the runaround with her daughter.

Morrison said that she has been to two different hospitals multiple times, but medical personnel decided not to remove the needle.

"They (Falmouth Hospital) said they were not going to take it out, because it is not life threatening, instead they are going to put her on clinic. I really could not wait and I was scared so I went to Savanna-la-Mar Hospital and they prepared her to take it out. After a while, a doctor came and asked to see her document and after that he said they were not going to take it out because Cornwall (Regional) didn't take it out and she has clinic dates," she said.

An accident

She said that officials at one hospital even threatened to call the police.

"I told them that it was an accident and anyone could sit on it because everyone was sitting in the chair that morning," she said.

For the past two months, Morrison, a 26-year-old mother of two, said it has been like living in a nightmare because she is scared about what will happen to her daughter and the doctors do not see the urgency of the situation.

"She can't go to school, she hardly plays. Sometimes she feels it stick her and she gets scared. I have sleepless nights because I am wondering and worrying if it is going to move; it has been rough. I don't see how putting her on sick time going to make it better," she cried.

When contacted, regional director for the Western Regional Health Authority, Errol Greene, said that The STAR brought the incident to his attention and the authorities would investigate.