Newborn dies at the K.H.M.H., family blames doctors at Northern Medical Plaza

Dulce Maria Coye

On Wednesday, one month old baby Dulce Maria Coye died at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. She had been rushed there by ambulance from the Northern Medical Plaza in Orange Walk Town on Tuesday, following two surgeries for a condition known as congenital pyloric stenosis. That’s when the muscle between the stomach and small intestine is enlarged and food cannot pass into the small intestine, resulting in chronic vomiting. With the death of the newborn, the grieving family is pointing fingers at doctors at the Northern Medical Plaza, claiming that they messed up the surgeries and that resulted in tiny Dulce’s death. Today Mike Rudon went to San Roman in the Corozal District to get some answers in this tragedy. Here’s the story.

Mike Rudon, Reporting

The family of tiny newborn Dulce Maria Coye stood around her small white coffin, preparing to lay her remains to death this afternoon. She was pronounced dead at one-o-two a.m. on Wednesday, and the cause listed on the death certificate is septic shock due to peritoneal inflammation. But those technical words mean little to seventeen year old Abigail Tun, who has lost her first child. Dulce was taken to the Northern Medical Plaza on September fifth because she could not keep any food down.

Abigail Tun

Abigail Tun, Mother of Deceased Baby

“I took her to the hospital because she was vomiting everything she drank. That’s why I took her there. The doctor asked that we do an x-ray exam and then said that she needed an operation urgently. I told him to go ahead and do the operation. They operated on her and everything was fine, but then a stitch ripped and the doctor said that she needed another operation. My baby because bloated and they said that she had too much gas.”

She said the operation was done and the baby was sent home, but had to undergo another operation just days after because her stomach was swollen. Even after the second operation the baby’s condition worsened. According to Dulce’s grandmother Rosa Tun, the newborn had problems breathing, and that’s when the doctors at Northern Medical Plaza decided to send her by ambulance to the K.H.M.H.

Rosa Tun

Rosa Tun, Grandmother of Deceased Baby

“The baby can’t breathe well. They tell me if the baby noh breathe in ten to twenty minutes, they are going to call the ambulance from Belize to make ih carry the baby to Belize. I said why you wah make dehn ker di baby to Belize because you said that we wah make it right here. No because we noh have the part that…the hospital have more to make the baby breathe. Only the doctor got something dehn fi make the baby breathe…oxygen. And they said dehn have to ker her to Belize.”

Abigail Tun

“She became critical. They used a respiratory machine on her and about five a.m. she went into shock. The doctors did everything to bring her back, but at eleven, by baby girl died.”

Dulce Maria Coye was dead, and as they prepare to bury her they are trying to figure out how they will move past her death.

Armando Coye

Armando Coye, Father of Deceased Baby

“She was our first daughter. And now she is gone. For us it is like they killed her. I was all excited to be a first time dad, but they took her away from us. We were very loving with her; we hugged her and kissed her always. They took her away from us. (crying)”

And even as they cry for the new life they have lost, the family cries out for justice.

Rosa Tun

“All my family say that I noh left that because they kill my baby. Dehn noh cure my baby; dehn kill my baby. I pay he fi mek dehn kill my baby? So right now I want dehn make justice of that because it’s the first baby of my daughter. I have to pay the hospital, I have to buy all the things. Dehn charge me four thousand dollars and dehn neva cure my baby; dehn kill my baby.”

Abigail Tun

“Well I want the doctor to pay me back the four thousand dollars I paid him along with my other expenses. But even so they will not bring back my daughter with that four thousand dollars.”

Dulce was laid to rest at one this afternoon in the village of San Roman. She was one month and two days old. Mike Rudon for News Five.