PAHO team begins probe into NICU deaths

The Ministry of Health has named the three-person team from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) which will investigate the recent bacterial outbreak at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Port of Spain General Hospital (PoSGH).

The team, which arrived on Monday, includes university professor Dr Nalini Singh, clinical microbiologist Dr Grisel Rodriguez and head of the NICU at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Barbados Dr Gillian Birchwood.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ministry said the team had begun its investigation and added it looked forward to the outcome.

The ministry's e-mail included ths CVs of the women with contact information and e-mail addresses. It subsequently sent another e-mail asking media houses not to reveal any personal information about them.

It said publishing that information "could jeopardise the saftey and privacy of the team members as they carry out their independent investigation."

The ministry also called on the media to give the team "the necessary space to conduct their inquiries."

The team

Singh is professor emerita-in-residence and professor of paediatrics, global health and epidemiology at the George Washington University in Washington DC, USA.

A Fulbright scholar, she earned her bachelor of medicine from Benares Hindu University, India in 1975 before doing an internal medicine and paediatrics internship at Boston University and then becoming chief resident, paediatrics, at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre.

She earned her masters in public health from George Washington University and then went on to serve as the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the US Children’s National Health System.

Singh also worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of its antimicrobial resistance team and was an expert adviser for the WHO’s Infection Prevention and Control Framework and Toolkit.

Singh is also a well-published author, with more than 92 publications to her name, including books, peer-reviewed papers and international infection prevention guidelines.

Rodriguez, who is head of microbiology at the Centro de Asistencia Medica Soriano, is a Uruguay-based PAHO consultant.

She has a master's degree in infection control from the University of Barcelona.

She began her medical studies at the Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, where she became certified as a clinical microbiologist in 1997 and was also was an assistant professor in the department of bacteriology and virology.

Rodriguez has led the infection and prevention control committee and the microbiology section of the clinical laboratory of the Centro de Asistencia Médica de Soriano in Uruguay since 2007.

She also won a PAHO award for innovation in the prevention and control of respiratory infections.

Birchwood is a member of the WHO’s guideline development groups and has presented on paediatric care throughout the Caribbean including St Vincent, St Lucia, Antigua, Dominica, St Kitts, Grenada and the British Virgin Islands.

She completed her bachelor of medicine in 1995 at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados.

Birchwood then completed her internship and residency at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Barbados before eventually becoming chief resident, paediatrics, at the Brooklyn Hospital Centre, Brooklyn, New York.

She pursued a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, New Jersey before returning to Barbados as a consultant neonatologist at the QEH, where she is still based as the NICU director.