Every child’s death matters
As I saw the headline, my heart sunk. Here we go again. Another thing destined to scare the daylights out of parents, “COVID Claims Infant”, big and red on the front page of the Guardian.
And I thought, now there’s going to be more fear-filled talk about “keeping children safe, keeping them inside”. More political statements about “not a child must die!” Schools are going to remain closed for longer. Parents are going to continue to catch their nennen combining work with day care for their children. The fear tactics, deliberate or not, designed to keep people locked down or not, guaranteed to maintain the high anxiety levels of the population or not, continue and continue and continue.
“Keep the children safe, keep them inside”, a favourite mantra of the Ministry of Health. No matter they getting fat. No matter they’re losing their eyesight. No matter they’re depressed or sour or afraid of other talking in person to other children. No matter it’s the worst advice you can give parents during this COVID epidemic.
“Not a child must die”, another favourite political statement. How caring.
In the 70’s we used to have a nasty disease called “Gastro”, in children. It was rampant throughout the country. Every year in the 70’s an average of 400 children died from it, a preventable disease that was easy to treat. Working at the Port of Spain General Hospital, I never once saw an article in the media about those 4000 or so children who died of Gastro in those 10 years. Was the Ministry of Health concerned? Not at all.
So we went outside, “faren”, got a grant from Canada and eliminated those deaths. The infamous Gastro wards (54 at POSGH and 14 at SFGH) closed in the late 80s so no one knows much today about Gastro.
One child dies of COVID and that makes headline news. And I’m sure we’ll hear talk for someone behind a desk in the MoH about how sad that is.
Every death of a child is sad.
Every one! Not only Covid.
Take a look at the mortality figures for deaths among children under age 14 years in T&T from 2012 to 2018. More up to date figures are not available. Can you believe that? We know the population of the USA on January 10, 2022 (332,915,000). We know the population under 18 (72,822,000). I can give you the total COVID deaths in the USA up to that date (713,261). I can even tell you the COVID deaths in the over 72 million children in the USA on January 10, 2022, a miserly 1,084, but I cannot tell you how many children died in TT for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
So much for Ministry of Health stats.
They will claim, after two years of pandemic, that they don’t have staff.
In 2012, 547 children died in TT.
In 2013, there were 318 deaths.
For 2014, 305. 245 children died in 2015. Something strange happened in 2016, only 176 children died. In 2017 there were 258 deaths and in 2018, 234. All were under age 14 .
No one knows exactly what they died of but we do know that the majority died in the first year of their life. So in 2012, 214 infants died. In 2013, 238 died. And so on up the years. Annually three out of every four Trinbagonian children who die, are infants, under one year. Most are premature babies, taken care of in our overworked, understaffed Neonatal Intensive Care Units.
Have you ever heard anyone from the MoH talk about this? Have you ever seen a headline in the papers saying “Prematurity Claims Infant”.
What is the risk of a child being hospitalized or dying from COVID in TT? We know that there have been eleven deaths but what is the risk? There have been about 8 thousand children seen at the EWMSC A&E for COVID and 59 were transferred to the famous parallel health care system but no one seems to know exactly what happened to them there, ie there is no feed-back, even among medical specialists. What about the other hospitals? In the midst of this, with cases increasing day by day, the Omicron surge well on, the historically famous “community transmission” now established and belatedly announced in Trinidad after Tobago did, unexplained ICU deaths waiting for a report, some are planning a “Taste of Carnival” but keeping schools closed.
The taste of COVID lingers in our mouth.
And I thought, now there’s going to be more fear-filled talk about “keeping children safe, keeping them inside”. More political statements about “not a child must die!” Schools are going to remain closed for longer. Parents are going to continue to catch their nennen combining work with day care for their children. The fear tactics, deliberate or not, designed to keep people locked down or not, guaranteed to maintain the high anxiety levels of the population or not, continue and continue and continue.
“Keep the children safe, keep them inside”, a favourite mantra of the Ministry of Health. No matter they getting fat. No matter they’re losing their eyesight. No matter they’re depressed or sour or afraid of other talking in person to other children. No matter it’s the worst advice you can give parents during this COVID epidemic.
“Not a child must die”, another favourite political statement. How caring.
In the 70’s we used to have a nasty disease called “Gastro”, in children. It was rampant throughout the country. Every year in the 70’s an average of 400 children died from it, a preventable disease that was easy to treat. Working at the Port of Spain General Hospital, I never once saw an article in the media about those 4000 or so children who died of Gastro in those 10 years. Was the Ministry of Health concerned? Not at all.
So we went outside, “faren”, got a grant from Canada and eliminated those deaths. The infamous Gastro wards (54 at POSGH and 14 at SFGH) closed in the late 80s so no one knows much today about Gastro.
One child dies of COVID and that makes headline news. And I’m sure we’ll hear talk for someone behind a desk in the MoH about how sad that is.
Every death of a child is sad.
Every one! Not only Covid.
Take a look at the mortality figures for deaths among children under age 14 years in T&T from 2012 to 2018. More up to date figures are not available. Can you believe that? We know the population of the USA on January 10, 2022 (332,915,000). We know the population under 18 (72,822,000). I can give you the total COVID deaths in the USA up to that date (713,261). I can even tell you the COVID deaths in the over 72 million children in the USA on January 10, 2022, a miserly 1,084, but I cannot tell you how many children died in TT for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
So much for Ministry of Health stats.
They will claim, after two years of pandemic, that they don’t have staff.
In 2012, 547 children died in TT.
In 2013, there were 318 deaths.
For 2014, 305. 245 children died in 2015. Something strange happened in 2016, only 176 children died. In 2017 there were 258 deaths and in 2018, 234. All were under age 14 .
No one knows exactly what they died of but we do know that the majority died in the first year of their life. So in 2012, 214 infants died. In 2013, 238 died. And so on up the years. Annually three out of every four Trinbagonian children who die, are infants, under one year. Most are premature babies, taken care of in our overworked, understaffed Neonatal Intensive Care Units.
Have you ever heard anyone from the MoH talk about this? Have you ever seen a headline in the papers saying “Prematurity Claims Infant”.
What is the risk of a child being hospitalized or dying from COVID in TT? We know that there have been eleven deaths but what is the risk? There have been about 8 thousand children seen at the EWMSC A&E for COVID and 59 were transferred to the famous parallel health care system but no one seems to know exactly what happened to them there, ie there is no feed-back, even among medical specialists. What about the other hospitals? In the midst of this, with cases increasing day by day, the Omicron surge well on, the historically famous “community transmission” now established and belatedly announced in Trinidad after Tobago did, unexplained ICU deaths waiting for a report, some are planning a “Taste of Carnival” but keeping schools closed.
The taste of COVID lingers in our mouth.