Spanish
Santo Domingo.– Joan Rojas, father of the two-month-old baby who died at the San Lorenzo de Los Mina Maternity Hospital, expressed his indignation after learning of the statement issued by the National Health Service, assuring that “things were not as they say” and that the center acted with negligence, malpractice and total indifference to the girl's condition.
Rojas stated that the baby was admitted with a mild case of the flu and respiratory distress, but that during her stay "the situation worsened until it took her life". According to her account, three children died in the same center in less than 24 hours, which she described as "alarming and painful".You may be interested in: http://Maternidad de Los Mina aclara bebé que falleció no fue desconectada de la máquina
"My little girl was healthy, she just had a little flu. At home she drank four ounces of milk and breastfed normally. She arrived chubby, strong, and left skinny, pale, without eating. They just kept drawing her blood," she denounced. The father maintains that the two-month-old baby remained in intensive care for nine days and was then transferred to a room where, according to him, the monitoring was neglected. He claims that the night the baby died, the monitor was turned off by nursing staff. "My wife had been there for 15 days without leaving, watching the monitor because that's where she saw how the baby was doing. That morning they turned off the monitor, supposedly because the noise was bothering them. She fell asleep from exhaustion and when she woke up, the girl was failing and the monitor was still off," he said. "You can't take boys there." The father stated that the medical staff's treatment was inhumane and that even hours before his daughter's death, the hospital had given him a check for 7,500 pesos to cover external exams, which they later demanded he return when the baby died. Rojas denounced irregularities in the handling of that money: "The first thing they told me when my daughter died was that I had to hand over the check. They weren't concerned about the girl, they were concerned about the money. They didn't want to receive it unless it was without a photo, as evidence. They handle everything like that." The interviewee said he has no resources to take legal action, but asks the authorities to intervene: "I am a construction worker, I have no strength or a penny. If I could file a lawsuit, I would have already done so. I just want them to investigate, because they put people learning there. Those are apprentices who work there." Emotional impact Rojas reported that the baby's mother is in a state of shock, with suicidal thoughts and severe emotional after-effects after spending 15 days in the hospital "without eating, without sleeping and practically living on the floor to be with her daughter". "That woman wanted to kill herself. How is someone who sees her daughter die like that going to be okay?" The father concluded by asking that no one else go through the same situation: "The only thing I'm saying is that you can't take guys there. Hopefully someone will do something." So far, the hospital maintains the official version given in its statement, while the families hope that the Public Ministry and the health authorities will deepen the investigations.
