Cavite hospital faces raps – PAO

ACOUPLE from Cavite is suing a hospital and its doctors for alleged gross medical negligence over the death of their 20-day-old infant, the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) said on Saturday.

PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta, however, opted not to name the attending doctors, as well as the hospital pending the filing of criminal, civil and administrative complaints against them.

The chief public attorney said the parents — Angelito Carabeo and Airine Dungca, both of Silang, Cavite — sought PAO’s help through its “Persida Acosta Legal Advice” (PALA) Program after what they thought was the untimely death of their baby Dwayne Aizen from the hands of the attending doctors and nurses.

The mother, who gave birth to twins — the other named Dwayne Angelo — by cesarean section, on July 11, at a medical center in Silang town, said they decided to transfer their babies to another hospital, also based in the province, as per the advice of their pediatrician after placing them in incubators for days.

Since the doctors had to cut the twin’s umbilical cord, they asked the parents for blood samples.

While the attending physicians found it easy to extract the blood sample from Dwayne Angelo, it wasn’t the same for Dwayne Aizen. The procedure, which took nearly two hours, was unsuccessful as the baby kept on crying, prompting the doctors to try the following day, the mother said in her statement to PAO.

The next day, the mother said she asked the nurses about Dwayne Aizen’s swollen left arm, which had a tourniquet that was only removed upon her prodding.

A doctor said that it was only normal for a premature infant like Dwayne Aizen to get bruises, but the mother argued that it was not a normal swelling, which may have been caused by the tourniquet left on her arm for several hours.

Mother Airine told PAO that they filed a complaint before the hospital management where the doctors promised to conduct a fair investigation. The parents were only asking for their baby to get well.

A week after, the parents said the doctors may not have been attending to their baby as they only saw gauges and antibiotics being given to her. They said they could not be provided with a clear diagnosis about the swelling arm of their infant, who started to get weak.

The mother said her baby’s condition worsened as the doctors had to undertake a cut-down procedure so that medicines particularly antibiotics could be given to her.

On July 28, she said she noticed baby Dwayne Aizen shivering which prompted her to call a nurse who arrived an hour later and did not do anything but instead called a doctor only when the mother informed her that the baby was gasping for breath.

The doctor and nurses put an oxygen apparatus through the baby’s nose, but the mother said she noticed that her baby still had difficulty breathing.

The following day, the mother was told by the doctors that the baby no longer had a heartbeat, which forced them to inject her with medicines as they undertook cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to revive her.

Mother Airine said her baby continued to have seizures, but the doctors said there was nothing to worry about as it was only the effect of losing her heartbeat.

The next day, they were told by the doctors to buy fresh frozen plasma for transfusion as the infant was lacking in red blood cells.

On July 30, the baby’s pediatrician told the parents that their baby’s heartbeat had stopped once more and several attempts to revive her failed.

“Because of the negligence of the doctors and the hospital, we decided to ask help from PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta. We want justice for our Baby Aizen, and we are pursuing cases against them so that this malpractice of doctors will not be experienced by other patients in that hospital,” the parents said in Filipino.

PAO Forensics Division chief Dr. Erwin Erfe told The Manila Times that an autopsy conducted by his team indicated that the “proximate cause of death was the tourniquet left by the hospital personnel in the left arm of the new-born child.”

“The tourniquet caused the ischemia (a condition in which the blood flow is restricted) and later necrosis (the death of cells in an organ or tissue) of the left arm. The infection spreads throughout the body which resulted in multiple organ failure and eventually her death,” Erfe said.