Child dies within few hours after hospital sends him home

Child dies within few hours after hospital sends him home
By Nina Muslim, Staff Reporter
Published in Gulfnews: December 09, 2007, 23:20

Dubai: A three-year-old boy who was taken ill after eating a packaged corn snack died within hours of a hospital sending him home, Gulf News has learnt.

Angelo Steven Mendoza started vomiting along with his father and nanny after eating a Filipino fried corn snack on Wednesday night.

"Early morning [Thursday] they started vomiting. At 3am we went to a hospital in Satwa, but the doctor just gave my son an injection to make him stop vomiting. They told me that he could go home once he had stopped vomiting," said Maribel Mendoza, the boy's mother.

She added they left the hospital at about 5am on Thursday morning.

She told Gulf News that around three hours later she was shocked to find her little boy no longer moving or breathing. She called an ambulance which took Angelo to Rashid Hospital.

But it was too late. Her son was gone.

"I was screaming. I didn't know what was happening," she said, sounding distraught.

"He was such an active and strong boy. He was talkative, so friendly and eager to learn everything," she added.

Now, she is trying to piece together what happened and move on from there. One question in her mind is whether the doctor at the hospital could have done more to save her son.

Investigation

"He didn't ask us what my son had eaten, did not check his blood or keep him in for observation. Maybe, he was the only doctor working on emergency cases that night, but he should still have checked him out before giving my son the injection."

A senior official with Dubai Police told Gulf News that the case was still under investigation. He did not say when the investigation would conclude.

Maribel said she and her husband would wait for the results of the autopsy and the investigation before proceeding with an official medical complaint against the hospital. She also said they wanted to bury their son in the Philippines.

Dr Eisa Kazim, assistant director general for medical affairs at Dubai Health Authority, told Gulf News that they would investigate the boy's death even if the parents did not file a complaint.

"It will come to us eventually and we will look into it," he said.

He added he could not comment until he had a chance to study the facts of the case, but said hospitals and physicians should try to find out the cause of an illness before treating the symptoms.

Angelo's case comes less than four months after a food poisoning case in Abu Dhabi, in which a 10-year-old girl died.

Two clinics she was brought to in August failed to diagnose her condition, instead treating her for vomiting and dehydration. Abu Dhabi Police confirmed she died of food poisoning.