Natalie Caseley felt proud when the doctor who gave her four-year-old, who was still alert after two doses of anaesthesia, commented that the child was being fed well and was a strong boy. But that feeling quickly evaporated when she realized that something was dreadfully wrong after he had been taken into the theatre for a procedure that was not expected to last more than fifteen minutes and hours had elapsed.
Her son Jaden Mars died on December 11, after he was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) for a bitten tongue, and now more than two weeks later, Caseley is a woman on a mission. That mission is to ensure that her son would not have died in vain
and that his death results in a major overhaul of the public health system.
“I need justice for Jaden and I am not going to stop until I get justice. If it takes forever ‒ and I don’t believe it would take forever ‒ I know I will endure with the grace of God,” the grieving mother told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
While the question of how things went so drastically wrong recurs like a decimal in the young mother’s mind, she said that the reality of her eldest child’s death still has not fully impacted on her. She spends most of her days on the road as it is difficult to be in the space where her son, whom she described as “jovial and always gaffing” spent most of his days. Her baby daughter still goes to the baby sitter every day and even in her pregnant state Caseley faces the world for hours on end. “I find it better to eat in public,” she explained.
In her shoulder bag is a photo album with photographs of Jaden at various ages and she even has photographs of his last hours in the hospital. On her mobile phone she has photographs of him during their many “Christmas walks” around the city. She had planned to purchase a bed for him and his sister and there is a photograph of him pretending to be asleep on a bed she had looked at in one of the stores.
She recalled that in her son’s final hours at the hospital she was praying for a miracle, since from what she was seeing she knew she needed one. “I was there when he was dying… I saw when his heart crashed three or four times…” the woman said with a faraway expression. “I believe something went wrong with my brain because I am a very emotional person and in the past I would have seen myself not being able to function under these circumstances… I know he is not coming back but I still believe the reality has not sunk in,” she said.
The young mother said she is still trying to work out how her son could have died from “actually biting” his tongue. She would have understood if he had bled to death or choked on his blood, but the bleeding had stopped before he left home and he was talking and walking when he was taken to the GPH.
“He was gaffing with his mommy because he is a little chatter box. And to think you will actually die when you are in the safest place for an injury… I can’t believe it.”
Recalling her pride when the doctor said, “Mommy, what you feeding this boy? This boy strong, this boy not sleeping,” after he had given her son two doses of the anaesthetic and he remained alert.
She was proud because she knew she did her best to be a good parent and took care of her two children, so when Jaden asked her why he was feeling funny she held onto him and told him all will be well before she was asked to move by the doctor.
“Imagine from biting your tongue to this,” Caseley said as she displayed the photograph of her young son lying in the ICU with wires attached to his body and with a bandage over his eyes.
She recalled that as she stood outside the theatre waiting for her son some of the hospital staff, including a doctor, nurse and other officials, approached her and asked what she termed as “irrelevant questions” like how many children she had.
“I was like, is he going to be okay and they told me to keep praying and I was like, he walked into the hospital and it is supposed to be a 10 to 15 minutes procedure, why is it taking so long?” the woman recounted, but she said by then she had a “gut feeling” that something was very much amiss.
Some hours later the woman said she was “flabbergasted” when she saw her son in the ICU just lying there with one of his eyes half open but both his eyes unresponsive. “I immediately knew I needed a miracle…” she said.
In the days after Jaden died Caseley recalled that she visited the offices of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Khan and Medical Superintendent Dr Sheik Amir and she had a handwritten note explaining her son’s condition from the time he was taken to the hospital to that date. She was unable to have an audience with any of them and was advised to lodge a complaint at another office, which she did, leaving the handwritten note.
But the only time she heard from any official at the hospital was the day Jaden died.
Today the hospital is still investigating her son’s death. She met with officials recently and they indicated that the investigation had not been completed and that they would call her after the holidays.
“But I am not giving up, I put everything into being a good parent… my son was a very outgoing child and even strangers in the street would reach out to him when we walk down the street. At his funeral the church was filled,” the mother recalled.
This is a Christmas holiday, but she would remember forever as for her and her family there can be no celebration.
Caseley said when one looks at the public health system they have to be very strong but she would ensure that her son’s death would be a “turnaround and change in the system.” “I plan to keep going and will not let up and maybe this will finally put pressure on the authorities to implement some changes,” the woman said, adding that too many families are grieving because of an uncaring system.
She feels her son’s case is the “worst, not because he is my son, but when you look at it he just bite his teeth and then he just dead.”
I cannot stop, I have to keep going,” the mother said about her quest to get justice for a son who is gone too soon.
