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Newborn baby girl might lose her arm

Born prematurely at 28 weeks, Alaa Odh is still in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. The parents allege that a wrongly administered intravenous saline drip resulted in the baby’s arm being infected with gangrene — an affliction that might spread to other parts of the body unless the ailing body part is amputated. The baby’s birth weight was 950gm compared to the desired 3.5kg weight of a normal baby born at 36 weeks.

Usama, the father of Alaa, and Tahane Odh, both Jordanian nationals, say, “Our child is suffering because the doctors were unable to take proper care of the baby.” They have lodged a case of negligence against the hospital at the Ministry of Health.

“Our baby was premature, and so she was prone to infections. In the initial 10 days, she got stomach infections. Later we noticed that her arm was beginning to turn red, then green and now it is bluish black,” said the distraught mother. “The doctors were not giving any explanation and were trying to make the issue unimportant until someone said that the reason could be a wrongly inserted needle for glucose administration,” she said. “She was normal until her hand became worse. We have been waiting for a responsible doctor to react, but unluckily she will pay the cost of her bad luck,” said the child’s uncle, Mehmood Odh.

He said that doctors also said yesterday that the baby’s condition was stable, but we wonder how stable when the gangrene has almost finished the hand.

Speaking about the situation, Director of Al Baraha Hospital, Dr Mustafa Al Hashmi, said, “At the moment our main concern is to save the life of the child.” He also said that the mother had delayed her visit to the hospital due to which several complications had arisen for the baby.

Dr Hashmi also said that because the child was premature, it also had a murmur in her heart and some respiratory problems. “In such children, locating veins is a tough task and she has to be kept alive through a feeding tube. We have to keep changing the position of the needle from the head, arms and legs otherwise the veins could be clogged. The baby’s weight is 30 per cent less than that of a normal baby, so handling her was a delicate affair,” explained Dr Hashmi. He also said that doctors from Al Tawam Hospital and Al Wasl Hospital were following the case.

Meanwhile, sources from the MoH said that a committee had been formed by the minister to look into the matter. It was learnt that the baby would be shifted to Al Tawam Hospital.

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