On September 3, four-year-old Natasha Sahadeo squeezed her thumb whilst playing, 20 days later she was pronounced dead at hospital.
Her father, Michael Sahadeo, told the Express that doctors are responsible for his child’s death.
The family have been plagued with sorrow- on August 14 their home in Kelly Village was burnt to the ground. They lost everything but were thankful that their lives were spared.
Mere weeks later, they lost the light of the family.
Speaking to the Express yesterday, Sahadeo, who was convicted for murder on two occasions in the past, said when he was released from jail, he turned over a new leaf and the birth of his daughter was his catalyst for change.
He said after his house was burnt, his family moved in with relatives in Las Lomas.
On September 3, he said Natasha was playing and squeezed her right thumb on a gate.
He and his wife Michelle carried the child to the St Helena Health Centre.
Sahadeo said doctors there “drained and dressed” the thumb, gave a prescription for antibiotics and sent the family home instructing them to return in five days.
On September 9 they returned with Natasha to the health centre.
“When we went back they say the finger get more worse that we have to go to Mt Hope for an X-ray and come back,” he said.
Sahadeo said they went to Mt Hope and after several hours got the X-ray and went back to the health centre.
He said Natasha’s thumb had turned black and after looking at the X-ray doctors at the health centre called an ambulance to take the child back to the Mt Hope children’s hospital.
“When we go Mt Hope we spend a day and a night, sit down. The doctors take a set of blood tests. All that time she was walking, talking, eating normal and everything,” said Sahadeo.
Both parents and Natasha slept on chairs whilst awaiting care.
Sahadeo said his daughter was then warded.
“They ward my baby. A whole week they ward my daughter for. Every morning and evening they taking blood test, all they say my baby her blood count low and her platelets. All kinds of medicine they giving my child,” said Sahadeo.
He said the doctors informed them that Natasha’s thumb had to be amputated.
“They give she blood before the surgery and the next morning she start to vomit green and pass out green stuff,” he said.
“They (doctors) tell we all kind of thing.
“They say her liver growing faster than how it supposed to be, her lungs failing, her kidney failing, but my child went in there healthy. When she was in the ward we sleep non-stop in there, in the waiting room, day and night we in the hospital,” he said.
On September 16, Natasha underwent surgery.
“She kept saying to she mother, mammy I don’t want to go for no operation” said Sahadeo.
“We sign the paper, we love we child, we do anything for her life. She went in normal, when she come back out she wasn’t she. They put a straw in she throat for she to breathe, they put a next straw inside she belly to pull out fluid. She wasn’t talking nothing only sleep. She sleep from the 16th to the day she die on Monday,” he said.
He said he and his wife were at the hospital when Natasha was struggling for life and none of the doctors called them even though they all knew they were there.
Sahadeo claimed Natasha was given steroids against their wishes.
“We tell them don’t give her any steroids. If you see the child body, the body real swell up big, she whole face, hand. My child went in there normal, eating, talking normal and healthy,” he said.
“After they do the surgery they say they have to go and cut she again, something inside she,” he added.
“She get up once after the operation and they gave her more medication to sleep.
If you is a mechanic you must know what wrong with a car, they kill my child they didn’t know what they doing,” he said.
He recalled the moment when he was told of Natasha’s death.
“By the time I see them come, not one of them come, eight of them come. They start to use big words and say I have to sign a next paper. Whole night we was there, they say my child get heart failure and we right there and they never call us. We right outside the door. Them doctors in Mt Hope killing people children,” he said.
“Everybody know my child, she was real loving, my only girl, I use to call her piggy. I change my life for she. Every where I go she was with me,” said Sahadeo.
He said he was shocked to see his daughter’s dead body which was swollen, her lips and tongue had turned blue.
The hospital’s autopsy stated that Natasha died from multiple organ failure, acute respiratory syndrome.
“Them kill my child, she went in the hospital healthy, she just squeeze she finger and today she dead. Them kill my baby,” said Sahadeo.
A second private autopsy is expected to be conduct[/center]ed.
