Medical director at the San Fernando General Hospital Dr Anand Chatoorgoon said doctors did all they could to save Navin Singh, but the flesh-eating bacteria that attacked him affected all of his vital organs with a vengeance, and removing the dead tissue from his leg and high-powered antibiotics proved insufficient.
Chatoorgoon said even if the doctors at the Princes Town District Health facility had diagnosed Singh as suffering from necrotising fasciitis when he first sought medical attention there, five days before his death, chances are that he would not have survived. He said investigations into the death are continuing, but from a first glance, he did not think the doctors who failed to pick up the cause of Singh’s illness were negligent.
“This condition, rare as it is, is lethal. It kills, it gallops, it destroys the tissues. It poisons the tissues in the leg, which in turn ends up releasing toxins which attack all of the organs of the body. “So by the time you really make the diagnosis, by the time it more or less comes to the surface of the limb, the patient is very sick by then and in most instances, it is very difficult to reverse the condition,” Chatoorgoon said.
“We treat bacterial infections with antibiotics, but then you have to know which bacteria you are dealing with, because not all bacteria are sensitive to all antibiotics. That is a challenge, to find out which organisms you are dealing with and which high-powered antibiotics you can give.”
When Singh was referred to the hospital, he said, he was far gone, but doctors did everything possible to ensure his survival, taking him into the operating theatre to remove the dead tissue from his leg, which was poisoning his bloodstream and affecting his brain, heart, liver and kidneys. But he said what the doctors encountered was a rotten leg and try as they might, they could not have reversed the condition.
Chatoorgoon expressed sympathy for Singh’s family, saying how helpless the doctors felt when they could not save him. But, he concluded, “There was nothing more we could have done.” He said hard as it is for the family to accept, he wanted to tell them that maybe this was Singh’s destiny. “It is hard and sad for the family to hear, but he came for 30 years on this earth. When God wills, man could do nothing to stop it.”
Minister responds
Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan said he has already spoken to the chairman of the South West Regional Health Authority, Dr Lackram Bodoe, under whose jurisdiction both the Princes Town and San Fernando hospital fall. Khan said Bodoe had told him an investigation would be done. Khan said he was aware of the rare disease and that it acted quickly.
ABOUT THE CASE
Singh, of Gajadhar Lands, Princes Town, died on October 30, two days after his 30th birthday. He died from septic shock and necrotising fasciitis of the right leg. Necrotising fasciitis is a serious bacterial infection that spreads rapidly and destroys the body’s soft tissue. Known as a flesh-eating infection, this rare disease can be caused by different types of bacteria.
Hard to diagnose
Responding to the concerns raised by Singh’s parents Bhagwantee and Andy Weekes about the death of their firstborn son, who was initially diagnosed with a pinched nerve, Chatoorgoon said necrotising fasciitis was very difficult to diagnose. There is no obvious cause for the condition, which involves multiple organisms getting very deep into the muscles, leaving no visible signs for a medical practitioner to detect.
“It presents with pain, and if a young, healthy man comes with pain in his leg and there is nothing obvious to see, you would think of the possibility of a pinched nerve in the back. No doctor would think of this condition because it is so rare, and especially at this time, when we have ChikV virus, which had a lot of joint pains—so bad that sometimes patients cannot walk.” He said that is why Singh would have been given an injection for the pain and sent back home.
Singh, 30, might have been experiencing a variety of mild symptoms before the severe pain in his leg caused him to see a doctor, he said, and by the time the disease manifested itself for doctors to actually see signs, it would have been too late for him.