Mohammed Mahir, an 18-month-old premature child from Pudukottai, who was undergoing treatment for bleeding in the brain, died on Sunday morning at the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Egmore.
A statement from the hospital said he had died of complications “in the form of bleeding in the brain which resulted in increase in size of the head due to accumulation of fluid in the brain requiring drainage.”
When the baby was five months old, a tube was inserted but the child lagged in development “involving all domains with poor weight gain and was nutritionally severely compromised”.
The child was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) on June 25 after the shunt tube was spontaneously expelled from his body through the anus. In an emergency procedure, a shunt tube was reinserted the same day.
However, post-surgery he had decreased blood supply to the right arm. He was diagnosed with inflammation of the arteries (vasculitis -anticardiolipin lgG and lgM positivity). “Investigations revealed that the baby had shunt infection with pseudomonas,” a statement from the hospital said.
The child was shifted to the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children on July 1 and as a life-saving measure, the right limb was removed on July 2. The child was then treated in the pediatric intensive care unit by a multidisciplinary team of doctors but he continued to have pseudomonas infection despite administering antibiotics, according to ICH director Rema C. Mohan and the RGGGH Dean E. Theranirajan.
The statement said procedures such as revision shunt, life- saving measures like artificial respiratory support were rejected by the parents of the child despite counselling by the treating team. The administrators had been counselling the family during the entire hospital stay, the officials said. But the child’s condition deteriorated and he died at 5.42 a.m., the statement said.
The hospital has recorded the problems and cause of death as: “Inotrope Refractory shock Acinetobacter sepsis/ Pseudomonas shunt infection/ Global developmental delay/ Preterm/ VH/ Tetraventricular hydrocephalus/ VP Shunt revision/ VP Shunt infection/ Vasculitic thrombi-anticardiolipin lgM and IgG positive Right shoulder disarticulation.”
