Dengue hits brother, sister By FELICIA RAMPERSAD Tuesday, December 23 2008
It is not going to be a merry Christmas for Beverly Chaitoo, 11, and her brother Jeremy Lutchmansingh, six, who have to spend the holidays at the San Fernando General Hospital where they are being treated for dengue.
The young children have been at the paediatrics ward of the hospital since last week.
They are among the latest cases of the dengue outbreak of this year. Reports of infections continue even as the year draws to a close.
The children’s uncle, Rajendra Maharaj, said Jeremy was given an injection at the Chaguanas District Health Facility where he was taken last week Monday.
Doctors advised the family that if Jeremy’s fever did not ease after five days they were to take the little boy to the Couva Health Facility.
Jeremy’s fever persisted and his anxious family, who also had Beverly with them, took him to the Couva Health Facility last Friday. They however left and went to a private lab to have a blood test done and the results were positive for dengue. Jeremy was then taken to the San Fernando General Hospital, the same day, where he was admitted to ward 14.
Beverly had accompanied relatives and Jeremy to the hospital. When they returned to their home in Couva, Beverly came down with a fever. Her condition got worse by midnight and she was taken to the hospital that night.
She was finally warded the next morning.
“We took her to casualty where they gave her drips and took blood samples. We had to wait four hours just sitting there. About four in the morning, they told us that her platelets were reading 47,” Maharaj said.
Maharaj told Newsday Beverly had to walk in her weakened condition from the Accident and Emergency Department to the paediatrics ward because there were no attendants to take her there.
He said Beverly’s platelets (cells which are important for blood clotting) are dropping steadily and doctors have said there are no platelets in the Blood Bank.
“Her platelets have dropped to ten and they are saying that it must be sourced elsewhere because there is none in the Blood Bank and there is none in stock. But this afternoon, one of the doctors said he would request the platelets from Port-of-Spain.” Beverly, he said, received a half bag of the platelets.
Beverly lay in her bed yesterday, unable to move without help. She was also too weak to talk. Her symptoms include itching, vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pains.
Maharaj said Jeremy’s platelets had also dropped but he was feeling much better than his sister. Jeremy sat on a chair with an intravenous tube through his hand and read his Christmas book– the only sign of the season on the small ward.
“I want to go home. I am not staying here for Christmas,” he said.
His mother Geeta Bansee said, “Christmas is so close and I did nothing so far. I did not really get time to shop and now it looks like my children will have to be opening their presents here on Thursday,” she said.
South West Regional Health Authority chief executive officer Michael Harris did not know about Beverly and Jeremy’s cases but assured the number of dengue cases reported at the hospital had decreased although he was unable to provide the statistics.
“Yes, it has dropped significantly and even the overcrowding has abated significantly,” Harris said.
