DOCTORS at the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) eventually lost the battle to save the life of an 18-year-old asthmatic girl, on life support, whose condition dramatically deteriorated after she was treated for asthma at a health centre in the City last Monday.

Dead is Nashwanttie Raghubar (also called Ambika), who had been asthmatic ever since she was five years old, but whose condition was monitored and managed by staff at the Georgetown Public Hospital for more than five years. She recently joined the clinic at the health centre.
According to her death certificate, the teen died of Cardio-Pulmonary Arrest and Severe Bronchial Asthma. She succumbed just after 22:00 hrs on Sunday – two days after her eighteenth birthday.
Around 8:30 hrs last Monday, Nashwanttie went to the health centre with slight wheezing, to be given oxygen and sent back home.
Relatives said she was strong, got out of the taxi and walked (with no difficulty) into the health centre. She was greeted by a nurse who, on being told what she had come for, opened the refrigerator to get out the prescribed medication for her, but found that there was none in stock.
Nashwanttie’s 16-year-old sister, Karishma Raghubar, who had accompanied her, recalled that the nurse turned to another staff and told her that the medication she needed was not in stock. The nurse enquired of Karishma, whether Nashwanttie had any at home and Karishma replied ‘yes’. One of the nurse at the health centre then reportedly asked the sixteen-year-old to go back home and get the medication for her sister; and she did.
But before Karishma could leave the health centre, the nurse enquired whether she had eaten for the morning, since the medication should not be taken on an empty stomach. On learning that the patient had not eaten, the nurse sent her sister to buy her a bottle of juice, but after she was hurriedly sent home for her sister’s medication, she accidentally set out for home with the juice in her bag, and so Nashwanttie did not use the juice.
However, before Karishma could return with the medication and juice, the nurse allegedly opted to administer a substitute. Karishma quoted her sister Nashwanttie as saying that the nurse took ‘something’ out of the refrigerator, applied it to the inhaler and administered it to her.
Nashwanttie said, from the time the nurse gave her the inhaler, she began feeling bad, developed difficulty breathing and immediately took down. On seeing that, the nurse immediately phoned Georgetown Public hospital and requested an ambulance .
Nashwanttie was placed into the ambulance, and at that moment her sister returned from home with the medication and juice. On arrival at the hospital, the patient was quickly attended to, and moments later was admitted to the Female Surgical Ward at GPHC. While at the Female Surgical Ward, she munched on an apple that her grandmother had bought her, and appeared to have been revived. It was then that she related to her sister Karishma what had transpired in her absence.
She said the nurse applied all haste in getting her to GPHC by ambulance, which meant that her condition had gotten really bad. Krishma accompanied her on the ambulance.

The patient spent the first three days in the Female Surgical Ward and her relatives said they were very satisfied with the care and attention she was given. “The doctors and nurses there did their level best to resuscitate Ambika, but we can’t understand (why) by Thursday her condition began looking bleak,” lamented her grandmother, Meena Devi Sankar, who is a teacher at a private secondary school.
She recalled that by midday Thursday, Nashwanttie lost consciousness, and had to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where the doctors waged an unrelenting battle to save her life. Before the end of the week she was placed on a ventilator.
“When we went into ICU there were so many doctors and nurses around her bed, we could have seen they were doing their best, but she was not responding and the doctor told us that her condition was critical,” Meena Devi said.
On Friday April 4, while in the ICU on life support system, Nashwanttie turned 18, but pathetically, remained in a coma and has absolutely no knowledge of what was going on within or around her.
The nurses in the ward designed and posted over her bed, Birthday memorabilia which they earnestly hoped she would wake up and acknowledge. Her mother and grandmother brought choice birthday cards which they placed around her pillow, prayed for her; kissed her, whispered little greetings; but waited in vain for her to open her eyes and smile at them. She had visitors from every clan and so many religious denominations turned up to pray for her; it was a moving sight.
Two days later, on Sunday evening just after 22:00 hrs, the family received a phone call from the ICU, requesting them to come down to the hospital. They hastened down and on arriving there, found that Nashwanttie had succumbed.
Throughout her period of illness, her mother Brihaspattie Praimchan remained grieved beyond words and tried in vain to keep composed. Daily family members huddled outside the ICU, just hoping and praying for a good word. Meena recalled that for thirteen years her granddaughter lived with her asthmatic condition and never developed an acute emergency.
She spent several years at the clinic at the GPHC and had become quite popular at the institution. “The doctors and nurses always had a kind word to offer her. Then about two years ago she was transferred to this Health Centre where misfortune struck,” Meena said forlornly.
The family, plunged in deep anguish, is insisting that Nashwanttie’s condition was not an emergency when she left home that Monday morning for the clinic, or they would have sent her straight to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
“She had a slight wheezing, so we thought that, out of caution, we would let her visit the Clinic and get oxygen, just in the event she should need it during the night,” her grandmother reiterated.
“What we would like to find out, is just what medication the nurse gave to her while waiting for Karishma to bring hers from home that Monday morning,” the grieving relatives contend.
By Shirley Thomas