ANOTHER BABY DIES…

Death Toll in Public Health System Mounting

As we go to press tonight, word reaching the Belize Times is that another couple is grieving the death of their newborn child, and claiming that negligence in the public health system is the cause.

Today the young mother, Judith Moody and her common-law-husband Rudy Faber told the media that they feel that their newborn son, who would have been named Alexander Russell Faber, would still be alive today if he had received proper care from medical personnel. Moody gave birth to her son on Saturday at the KHMH, and on Sunday the baby was cleared to be taken home.

The couple says that two days after, on Tuesday, the baby started having difficulty breathing and they rushed him back to the KHMH. That was when their nightmare allegedly started, the couple claimed, as medical personnel couldn’t seem to say what the problem was. Faber says that he was given different diagnoses for the baby’s condition, from pneumonia and diabetes to a blood infection.

This morning, baby Russell Alexander Faber passed away, and the reason the couple was left with is a blood infection. But they are not satisfied with that. According to Faber, doctors should have been able to tell that the baby was not well before they released him from the hospital with a clean bill of health. Faber is also upset because he insists that medical personnel did not seem to know what was wrong with the baby.

Under the United Democratic Party, the death toll in the public health system keeps mounting. Within the past six months, no less than six newborns have died unnecessarily and under suspicion of negligence or the lack of proper equipment. The public has yet to hear if even one proper investigation has been carried out by the Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Health Pablo Marin has yet to offer condolences to even one family which has lost a loved one unnecessarily.

And while the Minister is silent, the public health system continues to be plagued by a lack of basic equipment and medical supplies and a lack of morale. And while these crises plague the system, abetted by understaffing and overwork, the Minister has just received a $160,000 vehicle for his use.

Judith Moody and Russell Faber say that they will pursue all their options when it comes to getting justice for their son, Alexander Russell Faber.

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Judith Moody, Mother of Dead Newborn
“He stayed the blow hard, trying to catch his breath every minute. I took him to the doctor. When I reached at the emergency area, the first thing they sent me to do was an x-ray on his chest. When I finished with the x-ray, they read it and everything was fine. So they decided to put him on a nebulizer so he could catch his breath to see if he would be alright. No changes were made. He still was breathing hard and fighting for his breath.”

Rudy Faber,
“First they told me that it was bronchial pneumonia and then the next thing they said the child had diabetes, he had high sugar, and then the next thing they said was that the child had a heavy blood infection. But this is my thing: from they released the child from the hospital they couldn’t check all of these things. When we reached the emergency section, they took samples from this child, from this baby, when we reached up they took more blood samples. All these testing they did and they couldn’t see that this child had a blood infection all along and try to flush him out and do what they had to do to save his life.”

The newborn baby boy died this morning. The young couple who has previously lost a child says they want answers.

Rudy Faber,
“The doctors they said, after the child now, that is when they told us the child had a blood infection. All along all of this was going and nobody said nothing to us. They were treating it like the child had asthma or bronchial pneumonia and all they gave the child were antibiotics and drips and the nebulizer. That is basically what they give the child and from we reached I am explaining to them that this child needs urgent medical attention.

I just wish that we get a post mortem and we find out what wrong. If the child died from natural causes then we accept it but I would want to know if it was an overdose or anything.”

Rudy Faber told us that he has requested all of his son’s medical records and plans to get a second opinion on what was wrong with his son and what if anything the doctors at the KHMH did wrong. The KHMH’s Public Relations Officer Gary Ayuso told us this evening that he has received the complaint and it will be investigated from all angles. Three years ago the couple’s first child died at 25 weeks after the umbilical cord got tied around his neck.

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