THE body of six-year-old Mark Anthony Inniss of Strathspey, East Coast Demerara, who died of renal failure last Wednesday, was yesterday cremated at the Good Hope Crematorium, amidst bitter weeping and wailing.The only child of his parents, Robert Inniss and Parbattie Persaud, Mark Anthony celebrated his 6th birthday on February 2 last; but little did he or anyone else know that three weeks later, his life would have been snuffed out.

He died of renal (kidney) failure last Wednesday at the Georgetown Hospital, after being in the care of a doctor at a prestigious private hospital for the last three years. And it certainly cost his family a fortune; just over $2 million to be precise, since he never recovered and the hospital bills kept mounting.

REFERRAL TO GPHC
Eventually, he was referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital. After a protracted illness, the child’s condition became worse on the day after his sixth birthday, and his parents, along with his grandmother Indra Narine, took him back to the private hospital as usual. On that occasion, he had begun showing signs of swelling, including in his scrotal area. The child’s father, Robert Inniss, said their doctor advised them to place ice on the affected area, which they did; but the swelling was more pronounced the next day, so they took him back to the hospital.
Robert said that when confronted by that development, the doctor at the private hospital forlornly told them that they could not afford further treatment at the hospital, and so they should take the child to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. She prepared a letter of referral which she gave them to take along with the child to the public health institution.
The child, his parents say, was being treated with antibiotics and other tablets for three years, without the doctor ever knowing that he had developed chronic kidney disease (CKD) which in time had progressed to renal failure.

Robert claims, and stands by his word, that as far as his knowledge goes, the doctor never gave his child any blood test, or screened him to determine what would have been the underlying cause of his fever and sore throat. He said it was not until he began swelling, in the first week of February, that she probably realized that something was radically wrong with the child.
BIG DIFFERENCE
Robert said that on admission to the GPHC, the doctors there immediately scanned his son; did blood tests, including BUN and Creatinine; and diagnosed that he had suffered kidney failure. That was two-and-a-half weeks ago.

Mark was groaning, suffocating, breathing hard, and crying out for abdominal pains.

The GPHC doctors embarked on a rigid treatment regimen, including peritoneal dialysis, but considerable damage had already been done, and the child’s body was in a severely weakened state. The build-up of fluid caused by the malfunctioning of the kidneys apparently caused the water to touch his lungs, his father said. That was not good for him.
The family is loud in praise for the GPHC, saying: “Georgetown Public Hospital did a good job; they really tried with him (Mark Anthony). If we did know we woulda carry him there ever since and today he would been alive.”
But adding to the family’s grief is this damning fact: “After eating up we money for three years, that private hospital that been treating Mark couldn’t see that he had kidney problems.”

(By Shirley Thomas)