A malnourished child in a malfunctioning system
By Samantha Alleyne
Stabroek News
February 2, 2003
The swollen stomach and sharply protruding rib cage, the dirty bare feet, the head festooned with scabs, and the mouth lined with sores from which saliva slowly seeped, suggested a starving child from the Sahelian region of Africa.
Yet here I was in Guyana, not Africa, with a little boy displaying all the classic symptoms of kwashiorkor, or severe malnutrition.
Little five-year-old Akim Trotman, whose clothes hung on his emaciated frame as though on a clothes-hanger, looked at me with mournful, uncomprehending eyes.
He had been brought to the Stabroek News' offices on Thursday by an off-duty police officer, who said that he had spotted him in front of Banks DIH Industrial Site begging.
"He begged me for money to buy lunch and I gave him, but then I see he needed more than the lunch and I decided to bring he here," he said.
Akim told me his mother had gone to work. Later he said she worked at a fish processing factory, but he did not know where, and it is possible he was simply abandoned by her.
"I am hungry..." he whispered. But my concern was that he got medical attention so I accompanied the police officer and the child to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
We took Akim to the Accident & Emergency section where the nurse on duty said one of us would have to remain with the child. I opted to speak to the Chief Executive Officer, Michael Khan or the hospital's Medical Superintendent, Dr Madan Rambarran. Unfortunately both of them were in a meeting and so some employees advised us to go to the hospital's social worker department.
We met two ladies, one was on the telephone and the other was standing around.
The lady on the telephone was deep in conversation and ignored us. The other said she was a new employee in the department. But when she distracted the woman on the phone the response was: "I ent doing nothing outside of my duties." Another social worker said they only dealt with children in the wards.
So we headed to the Ministry of Human Services where I asked to see Minister Bibi Shadick. First we went into the social worker's office where everyone was shocked to see a child in such a state. Akim was taken to Minister Shadick who instructed that we return to the hospital where someone was waiting for us and we were accompanied by a ministry social worker. At the hospital the lady was the only person present and eventually said: "I can't help, I don't look after children, there is nothing I could do. The most I would advise...is to go to the police station and make a report and let the police bring the child to the hospital..."
And so we left and as we were passing Dr Rambarran's office I asked his secretary to see him. Dr Rambarran came out and I began to tell him how the child needed to see a doctor. "What urgent medical attention?" he asked prompting the gentleman to take the child's shirt off exposing his frail frame. Rambarran then said one of us would have to remain with the child for him to receive medical attention as the hospital was not "a home for the destitute."
The social worker along with Akim and the benevolent person asked to be dropped off at the Alberttown Police Station.
The man later told me that an officer accompanied them to the hospital and Akim was admitted to the hospital at 6:30 pm.
The next day I visited Akim in the paediatric ward and there I found him sitting on a chair, this time dressed in a white vest and pampers. He asked me for macaroni and cheese saying he was hungry, and also asked to see the policeman who had promised him some clothes. Nurses at the hospital said the child had been seen by a doctor.
CEO Michael Khan told Stabroek News when contacted subsequently that if the child needed medical attention the social workers should have seen that he was treated. He said normally the children come through the Ministry of Human Services but he said it did not mean that a public-spirited citizen could not take a sick child off the road to the hospital for medical attention.
For now the hospital is Akim's home. But his future remains uncertain in a system where he does not seem to fit.
