Save these babies

I have visited the institution and there are two babies on the ward awaiting open heart surgery abroad for over two months and nothing is being done to save these infants lives.

To my understanding these two babies were born with a rare congenital heart disease which is life threatening and it could only be corrected by complex open heart surgery which cannot be done in Trinidad.

Doctors have given up on all hope that these infants will survive any longer without surgery. These infants have to strive on unsanitary conditions at the hospital. From my keen observations the ward is short staffed of nurses, parents have to pay the role as nurses for their children.

There is no adequate accommodation for mothers’ stay at the hospital. Parents are not allowed any food or water. Parents have to stay with their babies 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Mothers have to sleep on a high back chair and these conditions make it very stressful for parents to live with.

The kitchen which prepares the baby formula is overrun by rats and bat dropping, cockroaches have taken up residence on the ward and kitchen and the water supply is highly contaminated by these rodents droppings.

These children have endured so much that their bodies have began to resist the medications that are keeping them alive. To my understanding the doctors are giving the parents the runaround and because of their acts these two infants are left to suffer and die.

As a concerned citizen, I have been begging, imploring, writing and talking to everyone I can think of to get help for these precious gifts from God. The babies are healthy full term babies who are at this stage fighting for life.

It seems unimaginable that in a country with such enormous resources and striving for developed country status before the year 2020 that our Prime Minister is blind to these problems at our nation’s hospitals. Why can’t Mr Manning send these two infants who are citizens of our beloved country by birth for emergency open heart surgery?