Tonight, the administration of the Karl Heusner Memorial is in the middle of a boiling controversy after an act of gross professional negligence has been uncovered. It started to unfold on Friday morning at around 1:05 when Pamela Fermin was taken to the KHMH where she delivered a stillborn fetus. While the unexpected stillbirth was a terrible disappointment, what followed with the fetus is almost unbelievable. The family today told us that improper care of their baby ended with it being literally, taken out with the dirty laundry.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Sherlet Holiday says that after her sister Pamela Fermin had her child on Friday morning she checked up on them and discovered the child had been still born.
Sherlet Holiday,
"And when we got there they already had the baby wrapped up in a hospital sheet, it was a very small little bundle, and they had him on the bed. So she opened up the sheet and everything and I said we would like to have the baby so we could take him home to bury him. She said that won't be a problem and I will just have to get it registered and log it down in the book."
Holiday says when the family returned to claim the baby it was nowhere to be found even after the attending nurse promised to follow up on procedures to release the baby to the family.
Sherlet Holiday,
"Before the nurse left she promised us, she said they will keep her (the mother) in the delivery section for two hours and then they will take her to the maternity ward. She said that she will take the baby straight down to the morgue but she didn't do that. She just left the baby right there and went home. So when I got back there at 4 o'clock her sister-in-law came and told me they found the baby. I asked where and she said at the Laundromat on Dolphin Street. I asked her what (in disbelief) and she said yes. She told me they probably took the baby along with the other laundry because it was in a dirty looking hospital sheet just wrapped up with one tape over with. When we went to check, there was not even a log saying that there was a baby for her. It wasn't professionally handled because it was like all she gave us was her word, and we took her word, that she would have handled it the proper way and take the baby to the morgue. What else would you do with a dead person? The place for that dead person to go is to the morgue and she promised that she would have sent that baby to the morgue. She went home off her shift and that nurse left that baby right there on that bed and early Friday morning they came in for the laundry and I guess it was then that they took the baby. They took (mistook) the baby for maybe a dirty sheet and they took the baby away."
The baby was taken from the Karl Heusner to the Belize Dry Cleaners Building on Dolphin Street where on the second floor, where the hospital laundry is attended to exclusive - attendants found it wrapped up in the bed sheets. The mother Pamela Fermin says for her baby to have ended up at the Dry Cleaners is the product of pure and unforgivable carelessness.
Pamela Fermin,
"I felt so bad after I heard because I said they are very careless. I don't think something like that should happen none at all, to know that that is a big hospital, something like that shouldn't happen none at all. I said maybe because it was small they treated it that way but it is still somebody because it was full, it has everything, the only thing was that it was small. I loved him the same way so I didn't wish for them to treat him that way, careless."
Sherlet Holiday,
"Its negligence, its like they don't care about anybody at all. It was a small baby so probably they said they normally burn these kind of babies so probably they thought this family won't mind because they will do away with the baby on their own. Look at the way it was done, this is a person and to be treated like a little animal hurt us really bad. An apology would be great but suppose it happens to someone else. I am pretty sure, I am not just saying this right off the bat like that, I am pretty sure that the hospital has been negligent in many other cases and people don't know their rights and I think that is the reason why people don't push and go as far as they can go with matters that affect them personally. I think maybe if maybe one person steps out and do something, maybe some changes will be made because too many things are happening and people are afraid to speak out. Unless one brave person gets up and do something about it, I think it will continue on as a trend and just like that nothing will ever happen. We don't intend to keep it just like this, we will go as far as we can go with this matter to make sure that no other poor pregnant woman, or anybody else that goes to the hospital, gets mistreated."
While Holiday says the family will continue to pursue the matter, KHMH authorities today did just that. In a press conference held this afternoon the KHMH CEO Dr. Alvaro Rosado along with Medical Chief of Staff Dr. Fernando Cuellar explained the circumstances around this case. We'll have his comments and explanation in our next segment.
